How can I print a pdf report in a batch process?

March 01, 2006, 01:06 PM

Hi All,

I've created a pdf report and saved it as a disk file named xyz.pdf. I can use CMD COPY to send this to any network drive or drives, but how would I also send this same report to a printer or printers?

Jim

March 02, 2006, 08:08 AM

<RickW>

quote:
Originally posted by RickW:
I'm actually working on the exact same thing for a batch process. Here's what I've found so far:

I was able to successfully print a PDF from my local machine to a network printer using the following syntax

c:\Progra~1\Adobe\Acroba~1.0\Reader\AcroRd32.exe /h/t "\\server\reports\pdfrpt.pdf" "\\server.domain.com\printername"

I was able to run this from within WebFOCUS when connected in LOCALHOST environment using a DOS command.

It would not work when running from WF remote server.

When running the command from just a DOS window on my machine (outside of WF), the Adobe GUI is launched
even with the /h switch which is supposed to suppress the GUI.

Someone wrote an exe http://forum.planetpdf.com/webboard/wbpx.dll/read?142106,52 that supposedly takes care of this.

Here are some additional links that may help;

https://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/en/acrobat/sdk/ReaderOverview.pdf

http://www.experts-exchange.com/Programming/Q_21545019.html

http://www.noliturbare.com/ChicksTools.html

http://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/en/acrobat/s...iac/IACReference.pdf

We have a thrid-party software for our batch process (non-WF stuff) so we'll probably end up writing some .NET/VB code to and call the Adobe API - at least that's what I've come up with so far for our solution.

Hope that helps.

March 02, 2006, 01:41 PM

JimRice

Thanks RickW, I'll give this a try.
Jim

March 02, 2006, 03:16 PM

dhagen

Would report caster work. There is a network printer delivery option.

March 03, 2006, 11:35 AM

<RickW>

RC is certainly an option. My problem is that I need to create compound PDFs for displaying online and this ends up requiring physical files for batch.

I know RC has a different processing engine so the issues with using the AcroRd32.exe method may not be a problem. I didn't test that since we already have an existing batch process associated with the app.

Definately a good suggestion though.