Success!

Here's the walkthrough.

1) Add a standard repository if you haven't already. Xandros is probably safest, but I have gotten away with this one (add this line to /etc/apt/sources.list):

deb http://http.us.debian.org/debian stable main

2) Get cups-pdf

sudo apt-get install cups-pdf

3) Add a printer using the cups web-based configuration -- for some reason, the wizard does not work.

- Point your web browser to http://localhost:631/
- Add printer
- You can put in anything you want in the three blanks (follow the rules.. you can call the printer cups-pdf or print-to-pdf or pdf or something like that).
- On the next page, choose "Virtual Printer (PDF)"
- On the next page, choose Postscript
- On the next page there should be one option for a color postsript driver, so go with it and click on Add Printer.

That's it! You should now have a printer in your printers list that will generate a PDF file in the ~/PDF folder. Unfortunately, as far as I can see right now, this just auto-generates a filename and puts the file in there -- it doesn't give you a dialog or anything. But it works nicely.

That is cool.  Now I can create printouts of web pages as I go along.  A couple of questions, please:

1. Exactly what is meant by "name the print command as kprinter"?

2. Are there other things that one can do through similar web interfaces?

Thanks

Ahhh, so kprinter can do this without cups-pdf? I didn't realize that. Good to know, although I suppose I'll leave well enough alone.

Can or cannot? The cups version coexists also... the Eee uses cups for network printing anyways. My office printer is configured via IPP and CUPS.

For that matter, isn't kprinter just a front end for cups to begin with?

Last edited by mkrishnan (2007-11-13 4:10:43 pm)

dewguy wrote:

Is there a way to set up kprinter as one of the printer choices so it can be picked from the printer list instead of typing it in each time?

why u need to type it each time ?

Doesn't OpenOffice writer do this by default?

fengzj wrote:

I followed every step and installed cups-pdf. But when I "add printer", it asks me for the username and password at the last step. Is it normal? It keeps on asking me to provide uasername and password even after I type them in. Failed to "add printer".

I ran into this as well. It worked with "root" and my user password.

I followed the instructions and it worked well, so I've added them to the wiki. Thanks to Mohan for laying it out so well.

Please improve the wiki if you find anything that's not clear.

That appears to be correct, yes....

When you first point to http://localhost:631 -- what version of CUPS is reported? (it should say something like Common Unix Printing System 1.2.7 at the top).

Also did you succeed with steps 1-2? What is the result of this terminal command:

/home/user> dpkg -l | grep -i cups-pdf
ii  cups-pdf                            2.4.2-3                         PDF printer for CUPS

Is that the version of cups-pdf reported as installed?

So then after you provide the name etc of the printer, what *is* in the option list?

Just a minor caveat about this method.  Because this method automatically names the pdf, I think it overwrites any file with the same name.

A little bit of tweaking to the cups-pdf settings can fix this: edit cups-pdf.conf to set Label value to 1, and it will add a unique job ID to the front of the file name, and no need to worry about duplication

sudo nano /etc/cups/cups-pdf.conf

Look for the setting "Label"

Uncomment it, and change its value to "1", so that the line reads

Label 1

Save the changes (Ctl+O), then exit (Ctl+X)

You should not need to restart cups for the changes to take effect, but, if you want to:

sudo /etc/init.d/cupsys restart

And, there you go


(cups-pdf.conf also lets you change output path settings etc.)