I have setup a remote Ubuntu server, it has cups-pdf on it. I have a Windows 10 client it is able to print to it using an HP Universal Printer driver.
The thing is, we're trying to send fillable pdfs and the fillable fields are stripped out... that is probably obvious but I want to know if it's possible to keep the fields...
Are they already gone by the time they hit the server or can I stop them from being stripped out on the cups side?
I know it would be easier to just do file upload... it's an interop problem where printing is the best way to get the files around.
Related
Problem: Need to convert local html (with local images etc) to pdf from an AIX box running Universe 11.2.5 with System Builder
Current solution: FTP over html file to a Windows server which converts in batches and sends the e-mail to the destination
Proposed Solution: Do everything on the AIX box, from converting html to pdf and sending the e-mail.
Current problem: Unable to find a way to convert local html to PDF on the AIX box. I have been trying many different ways from trying to install Python3, but to no avail.
The only really difficult part of the process is getting the HTML to render into a format will properly display your html into pages that are suitable for printing. There is a fair amount of magic that goes on between HTTP:GET and clicking print on a browser window that needs to be accounted for.
I was trying accomplish something similar many moons ago on AIX but kind of ran into a skill level/time wall because I was going to have essentially create a headless browser to render the html. It looks like there are now some utilities that you might be able to leverage. I found this recent updated article on Super User that actually got me somewhat excited, especially since I don't use AIX anymore so precompiled binaries and well understood and easily attainable dependencies are something I can actually have in my life.
https://superuser.com/questions/280552/how-can-i-render-a-website-as-an-image-from-the-shell
Good Luck.
There seems to be several questions rolled into this one item.
Converting HTML to PDF, while that is just a data manipulation that you could do in basic, writing such code would be a large task. The option you use sending it to another system is valid, but put more points of failure into the system. I would think you could find code to do it on the AIX box.
Rocket plans on getting the MV Python to work on AIX, this will make the converting of html to PDF much easier since there are a lot of open source modules.
As for my suggestion of using sockets, that would be if you intend to send it to a service that will take the htms, and return the pdf document.
i.e. Is there a web service for converting HTML to PDF?
Once you have the pdf document, you can either store it in a UniVerse type-19 file, or do the base64 encoding and store it in UniVerse hash file.
Hope this helps,
Mike
I have a problem about PDF file encryption using php.
Case: Let's say I have a local system (web based) to upload and download files, such as 4sh*red (dot) com, but it just allows PDF file. A user sign up and login to download the PDF files using his or her own personal computer. After users downloaded a PDF file from my system, the file can be viewed only on computer where they downloaded the file. But, if another user copy it (I mean: downloaded PDF file) to another computer, the file can't be viewed on that computer.
Note: I don't mean here about protecting the PDF files using password because nowadays there are a lot of softwares used to remove PDF's password protection. But, the file can't be viewed at all if copied to another computer.
Can we do that in php? If yes, do you know any algorithm to solve the case?
I really appreciate your response or answers.
Thank you.
The PDF format is an open format by Adobe. This means there are a lot of programs out there that can read it and quite same that can modify it.
If you write your own program and add some stuff to the PDF, then maybe you can do this.
Another question is - why don't you just make the document visible in the web browser to the user? Of course there's still going to be a way around for savvy users to get it, but most noobs wouldn't know how and you can easily close the simplest blocks (like right click / save).
What maybe interesting to do is what a lot of companies are doing with videos nowadays: you can dynamically add some hidden or visible 'info' to a PDF that identifies who you sent it to. In that way, if the PDF shows up somewhere else - you know who spread it.... Again - PDF is an open format, so anyone can always erase whatever you write in the main contents, so you'd have to add a hidden image to the content or something.
I am running a Citrix-driven environment, and I have a vital piece of software that creates a PDF repository of all reports as they run. The problem I have is that the users' printers must populate into the environment (Not just the default printers- ALL of them), and a number of the computers have Acrobat 9 or X on them. The software that creates the reports REQUIRES that the Rely On System Fonts is turned off, but some users have it turned on when it comes to the PDF printer on their computers. Sometimes, when user x goes to create a report, it will grab the printer from user y's session that may not have the option properly unset- Then user x's irreplaceable report is lost. The application is a Dexterity application, and I don't have access to the source. Is there a way, in Citrix or in AD, to script this one option to be unset properly? Any idea if there is a registry key or some kind of hook I can activate with a powershell script to fix this headache? I appreciate any help.
I have been researching for weeks to figure this out for myself, and I was looking for one more answer and found your question. To fix your problem I was able to find that the registry key found here:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Printers\DevModePerUser]
Contains all of the current printer properties. If you export it, you can run a script to add the reg key during login. Just make sure that you restart the spooler after words, just to make sure that the changes apply. Also the settings will only apply to the printer with the same name, so you have to have a different reg key for each different printer name, if you have several. I just esported the key after I had changed the printer settings to how I liked them, and then edit the .reg file to remove any data about other installed printers to make sure that the .reg file wouldn't affect any other printers.
Apparently, this problem is a common problem. Microsoft has acknowledged that the PDF creation issue I am trying to avoid is an issue in GP, starting in (Think it was version) 7. The Microsoft-recommended workaround is to open the PDF Printer properties and uncheck the Use System Fonts box. Adobe does not support this configuration, so they will not provide a clear way to implement it at a network level with clients in many locations and 4 different major versions of Acrobat. The closest I came was a post that identified an incredibly long string I have to hexedit that seems to change in specific minor versions of Acrobat. Way to go M$ and Adobe. So, in other words, no support on major product lines from two major companies. I have nowhere else to go at this point. If anyone else has a solution to this problem, I'd love to hear it. Thanks!
We have a process at our company that processes TIFF images. I have a project where I want to be able to capture emails that people have received and let them pass it on to our imaging process. Right now forwarding an email isn't really an option but our initial thought was that we could create an Outlook addin that would create and send an image of the email to our internal webservice and it would just work.
I'm developing on Windows 7 with VS2010 and Outlook 2007.
I have the basic addin framework setup - that seems to work OK. The addin is there, popping a regular Windows form where I can do my stuff. But now I'm running into problems. First I was going leverage the built-in Microsoft Office Document Image Writer which can write to TIFFs. However, this doesn't appear to be installed as part of Office 2007 on Windows 7. Then I found some references that it didn't work on Win7 64bit in the first place, and that Microsoft was phasing it out in favor of their XPS printer anyway.
Then I moved on to thinking I could maybe use PDFCreator. This sort of works, except it looks like I have to actually have PDFCreator installed on the client machine, too. I was really hoping I could just bundle the dll and PDFCreator could natively "print", but it seems rely on you setting the active printer to "PDFCreator" and still printing to that. I was already maybe going to run into problems pushing a custom addin out to users in the first place; I don't know if I could get a new printer rolled out as a requirement, too.
On top of that, you apparently can't set the active/default printer in Outlook once it's running. So my plan to run the addin, change the default printer to PDFCreator, print it, then change it back isn't going to work after all anyway.
We really wanted to be able to capture emails as if the user had printed them out and scanned them, which is what they have to do now. I would really not like to rely on copying/pasting into another application if I can help with it.
Sooooooo, what other options might I have? Is there any close to native functionality in Windows or Office that would let me print to something and eventually get a TIFF? Does it look like I'm going to have to try and string together a bunch of 3rd party tools or something? It looks like the only way to "print" an email is to do the MailItem.PrintOut() command, which is just going to go to whatever the current default printer is. Are there any other TIFF-printing things available that wouldn't involve installing a new virtual printer on the end user's machine? Any other ideas? Thanks for any help!
Although you ruled it out at the start of the question...
Assuming you need those tiffs at a central location and not at the employee desktop.... I'd still advise you to have your addin forward the respective mail to a central location (as an attachment to a automated mail, or perhaps just write it to a queue folder on some network location), then have a central process pick it up and print it out to tiff files.
Unless you have exact control over the client machines at your company (which from the sound of it, you don't), you really want to move some fickle as 'switching printers in Outlook' away from the clients.
That doesn't mean this approach doesn't require hacks as well, because that central process will be running outlook to do the work.
I assume it is important that your tiffs look like they were actually printed from Outlook, if not please add that as extra information to your question, as it opens new routes. Like capturing the email-screen rendering and putting that inside a tiff file, which can all be done on any desktop machine.
I am new to PowerBuilder. I got an assignment to create a PDF file using PowerBuilder. How can I do that?
Our organization used to use Ghostscript, but has instead moved to Amyuni.
as suggested by Alberto Megia, download PDF creator, but dont use SAVE AS.
After you install pdf creator it will install a printer, use that printer to save the
datawindow with the print function.
after call print function, you will see a "Save as" dialog.
If you use "saveas" function, the pdf will not have the format that the datawindow shows.
What version of PowerBuilder are you using? The most recent versions have PDF capability built in (using Ghostscript).
Install Ghostscript.
Get PDFCreator for free there and install it.
Then you can save as PDF any datawindow or datastore with the statement:
dw_1.saveAs(path_where_to_save_with_name_of_file.pdf, PDF!, true)
Third parameter is for override if the file exists with that name. I hope it works for you.
Regards,
Alberto
We just use Ghostscript. I wrote Ghostscript setup instructions earlier. We also print Word documents we've filled in to PDF from our app by printing them to 'Sybase DataWindow PS' printer then running Ghostscript to make the PDF.
Good Question - There really isn't an easy way other than finding a third party tool. I've tried the prior method mentioned and it does work but not without headaches and you are left with deployment headaches, deploying ghost script and having to make sure Post Script drivers are on the client.
I ended up trying many PDF converters, both free and paid, the one that worked most seamlessly was one that installed as a "printer" such as if you have Adobe installed on the PC, but you need to dynamically verify existence of the printer via RegistryGet and if it doesn't exist ask user to install or install it dynamically via code, and registry entries (not fun).
After several headaches mostly related to deployment issues I ended up going with a server solution, but it requires having a server that you can have a process (distiller) running that grabs post script files and distills them to PDF. I used a response window with progress bar, the PB app printed post script file to server location upon which the distiller grabs and converts. My PB app polls the server until it finds the PDF, or the user cancels whichever comes first. With a good distiller the process is fast (< 5 seconds) which was acceptable to our users.
Upon existence of the PDF, we'd attach it to an email and send via Oracle (mapi). This solution limits the requirements on client to post script driver which in most corporate environments is there, but you need to check it via Registry. Maybe there is a better solution out there since I did this last, around 2008.
fyi- I usually don't make vendor recommendations but will in this case because there was one that stood out in ease of use and quality, it was called PDFCreator which installs as a windows printer. It looks to be open-source right now but I recall that we would have had to pay to use it in corporate environment.
Good Luck.
Use the tutorial How to use PowerBuilder to create PDF file?.