Automate creating PDF files using Acrobat Distiller.

Ray Hawkins

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Apr 10, 2003, 8:31:06 PM4/10/03

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Hello,
I have Adobe Acrobat 5.0 running on Windows 2000 and I wanted to know is there a way to automate the process of creating PDF files.
Currently I print the documents using the Acrobat Distiller Print driver and each time a dialog box opens asking for a filename.
Is it possible to automate this process in my application without user interaction. I'm using Powerbuilder 8.

Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Ray

SA

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Apr 14, 2003, 8:52:01 AM4/14/03

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Ray:

Distiller doesn't make this easy. Two possilbe ways:

1.) Output your file to a post script file; you can do this by setting up a
copy of the adobe postscript printer driver to a specific target output file
as the port. Then use the distiller com object's FileToPDF to convert it
to a PDF file.

2.) Create a new port which is the file name at run time using the AddPort
api and change distiller printer to use that port. In the instance you must
have distiller printer's print preferences set to not ask for the file name.

Steve A

"Ray Hawkins" <rrha...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
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Ray Hawkins

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Apr 14, 2003, 10:55:40 AM4/14/03

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Steve:

Do you know where I can obtain the Acrobat Distiller API? And are there examples using these two examples you described?

Thanks

Guy Smiley

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Apr 14, 2003, 11:22:50 AM4/14/03

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Couldn't you just use a watched folder? With a watched folder, any time a PostScript file appears in the folder, Distiller automatically distills it and sends the resulting PDF to whatever folder you choose. This process requires no user intervention.

--Mike Nitabach

Ray Hawkins

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Apr 14, 2003, 11:25:54 AM4/14/03

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Aandi Inston

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Apr 14, 2003, 12:08:22 PM4/14/03

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Acrobat SDK, http://partners.adobe.com

Aandi Inston

Ray Hawkins

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Apr 14, 2003, 2:34:37 PM4/14/03

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How would do you use the watch folder? And isn't the watch folder only for postscript files? My file isn't a postscript file but I can convert it to a pdf using the Distiller print driver.

de Siem

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Apr 15, 2003, 7:53:22 AM4/15/03

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To get rid of the save as dialog box, go to your printers and right-click distiller and select printer preferences.
Then click on the pdf settigns tab.

Deselect the optin you don't want.
You still need to give the print command in order to print to distiller manually.

If you want to fully automate this then follow the link that Aandie suggested and read the documentation there.

Ray Hawkins

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Apr 16, 2003, 8:37:36 PM4/16/03

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As far as using the API, Do I need to download a special Distiller API, or is this included with the installation of Acrobat?

Aandi Inston

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Apr 17, 2003, 4:14:06 AM4/17/03

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Distiller provides the API automatically. All you need is the
documentation on how to use it. This is in the "Distiller API"
document in the Acrobat SDK. The SDK is on http://partners.adobe.com/
> Developer > SDKs.

Aandi Inston