HOWTO: Install Cups-PDF

[kleeman]

ok, nice, the virual pdf printer work fine from local and remote.

But there's no /etc/cups-pdf.conf

how do i change the default pdf output location ?

For future reference use synaptic to find where this file really is:
/etc/cups/cups-pdf.conf

[froggay]

sorry i made a mistake in the path.

i tried to copy a template cups-pdf.conf (from cups-pdf website)
to /etc/cups/cups-pdf.conf

and changed the "Out"
restart the daemon with /etc/init.d/cupsys restart

but it seems that the /etc/cups/cups-pdf.conf is not parsed !
my pdf still going to /home/$USER

what's the problem ?

[Hexx]

Can anyone tell me how to get CUPS-PDF working under Xubuntu?

[Cephus]

Thanks to everyone from this thread for all their guidance. The sticking point in this whole process is that you need to be root to edit the permissions on the executable.

1. Install the cups-pdf package (I used version 2.2.0-1)
2. Go to System -> Administration -> Printing
3. Doubleclick "New Pinter"
4. Notice that there is no mention of a CUPS PDF printer
5. Open a terminal and tpe "sudo nautilus" and then your password
6. Go to Filesystem -> usr -> lib -> cups -> backend
7. Rightclick "cups-pdf" and select Properties
8. Go to the Permissions tab and click the "Set user ID" special flag
9. Again try to add a new printer
10. There is now a "PDF Printer" detected, select it
11. Select the Generic, Postscript Color Printer (Rev 3b)
12. Give it a name, like PDF Printer
13. Right click on the newly created printer, and select Properties
14. Click "Print a Test Page"
15. The file should be in your Home folder, under the PDF folder

First off, thanks so much for the how-to! This works beautifully! I have a couple additional questions, however. As a Windows convert to Linux, the previous PDF driver (not Adobe) I used allowed appending to the beginning or end of the created document, altering its quality and therefore file size, etc. Do such options exist with this listed setup?

Thanks!

Cephus

[oskvaz]

Thank you Loki, good howto!

[leohart]

Thanks for How-to. Was wondering around how to do that this morning.

A quick question is : why does cups-pdf need SetUID? Doesn't that mean whenever cups-pdf is run, it will run under root priviledges?

Why does it need root priviledge? It is putting the file in my $HOME so if I run it, it should be able to write to my $HOME right?

[TuxCrafter]

I use xubuntu and i dont have the gnome printer dialog i use the cups webinterface : http://localhost:631/

Can somebody post these files with a working pdf-printer
/etc/cups/cupsd.conf
/etc/cups/printers.conf

thx

[Jose Catre-Vandis]

I have used Cups PDF printer from the beginning Can anyone advise, however, why the output is not machine readable? I'll explain. Open up one of your created pdfs in Adobe reader and then using the Select tool, grab some text, copy and past it into your text editor. You should see a row of little boxes with numbers and letters inside, and not the text you copied. This doesn't happen with "proper" pdfs? Any clues?

[TuxCrafter]

I believe cups-pdf uses postscript to genarate pdf, however i am not sure. I have also problems with evence and printing if i generate a pdf with tranparent images (alpha layer) evence cant print them correctly) acrobat can.

So there are diffrences between the engines that are used.

[neohawkeye]

Excellent thanks for this thread I have now got PDF up and running in no time.