[reportlab-users] Printing Help

[Jade Meskill]

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On Fri, 2003-01-10 at 01:26, Dave Rogers wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I use ReportLab to generate PDF files as part of a python windows service.  First of all, is there any kind of printing mechanism with ReportLab?  As I'm not aware of  any printing interface with ReportLab, I know this may not seem 100% related, but I'm in dire straits here, so I thought I'd ask the PDF experts.
> 
> Environment:
> 
> OS: Win2K
> Py: 2.1 with Windows extensions
> reportlab 1.15
> Acrobat Reader: 5.1
> 

> I guess I could write some sort of DDE interface to Acrobat but that sounds like more Windows garbage than I want to delve in to.
> 

I have been fighting this for quite some time now, and had to resort to
DDE to get any sort of reliable behavior from Acrobat.  We also tried
Ghostscript, but had a lot of issues with it (it would randomly not want
to print some reportlabs generated PDFs).  Attached is the script that I
use for Acrobat (it will launch acrobat minimized and will print the
file; acrobat will remain open, but minimized).  Hopefully this will be
of some help, but I really wish there was a good, reliable way to batch
print PDFs in Windows, it sure would make my life a lot easier.

--
Jade Meskill
jade.meskill@libertydistribution.com


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Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=acroprint.py
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#
#  no copyright, please feel free to use this code however you wish
#

import os, sys
import time

if os.name == 'nt':
    import win32ui
    import dde
    import _winreg

#------------------------------------------------------------------------------
def _printPDF(filename):
    """ print a pdf """
    if os.name == 'nt':
        ## create a DDE connection and open acrobat if possible
        res = _checkAcrobatOpen(1)

        if not res:
            return
    
        ddeServer = res[0]
        ddeConv = res[1]
    
        ddeConv.Exec("[FilePrintSilent(\"%s\")]" % (filename))
        time.sleep(1)

        # close dde connection
        ddeServer.Destroy()

    else:
        os.spawnlp(os.P_NOWAIT, 'lpr', 'lpr', filename)

#------------------------------------------------------------------------------
def _launchAcrobat():
    """ try to find the acrobat executable and launch it """
    if os.name == 'nt':
        readerKeys = {'SOFTWARE\\Adobe\\Adobe Acrobat\\5.0\\InstallPath' : 'Acrobat.exe',
                      'SOFTWARE\\Adobe\\Acrobat Reader\\5.0\\InstallPath' : 'AcroRd32.exe'}
        reader = ''
        path = ''
        for key in readerKeys.keys():
            try:
                path = _winreg.QueryValue(_winreg.HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, key)
                reader = readerKeys[key]
                break
            except:
                continue

        try:
            os.spawnl(os.P_DETACH, path + '\\' + reader, 'acrobat', '/h')
            time.sleep(5)
            return 1
        except:
            raise "Acrobat not found"

    return 0

#------------------------------------------------------------------------------
def _checkAcrobatOpen(launch = 0):
    """ try to create a DDE conversation, if it fails, launch acrobat and try again """
    try:
        (s, c) = _connectAcrobat()
        return (s, c)
    except:
        if launch:
            if not _launchAcrobat():
                return 0

        for i in xrange(10):
            try:
                (s, c) = _connectAcrobat()
                return (s, c)
            except:
                pass

#------------------------------------------------------------------------------
def _connectAcrobat():
    """ Create a DDE server and conversation with acroview """
    s = dde.CreateServer()
    s.Create('')

    c = dde.CreateConversation(s)

    c.ConnectTo('acroview', 'control')

    return (s, c)

#------------------------------------------------------------------------------
if __name__ == '__main__':
    ## this should do everything for you
    _printPDF('test.pdf')

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