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howto:addpdfprinter

Adding a PDF Printer

Install cups-pdf

Add a standard repository, if you haven't already.

  • Open a terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T)

Add this line to /etc/apt/sources.list

  • sudo kwrite /etc/apt/sources.list
deb http://http.us.debian.org/debian etch main

Get cups-pdf

  • sudo apt-get install cups-pdf

Add the Printer

Add a printer using the cups web-based configuration (the wizard does not work).

  • Point your web browser to http://localhost:631/ (you can click this link)
  • Add printer
  • You can put in anything you want in the three blanks (you can call the printer cups-pdf or print-to-pdf or pdf, but spaces are not allowed).
  • 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.
  • If it asks for a username and password, enter “root” and your user password.

That's it! You should now have a printer in your printers list that will generate a PDF file in the ~/PDF folder. This auto-generates a filename and puts the file in ~/PDF. One thing you need to beware of is that the auto-generated filename may be the same as an earlier auto-generated filename and, in that case, this method will overwrite the first file without any warning.

In order to change the settings to give each printout a unique identifier, you will need to edit the cups-pdf configuration file. If you wish to take a backup of the file first, which is good practice, type:

sudo cp /etc/cups/cups-pdf.conf /etc/cups/cups-pdf.conf.bak

Now, edit the configuration file:

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

In cups-pdf.conf, you can change output path etc if you should wish to do so.

Source

howto/addpdfprinter.txt · Last modified: 2009/08/26 02:38 by bl00