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  • 1.  Converting PDF files to postscript

    Posted Wed October 24, 2007 10:27 AM

    Originally posted by: bhead


    Is there a way to convert PDF files to postscript for printing? If there are multiple ways to do this what is best method? We are running AIX 5.3 on most of the servers, handful of 5.2.

    Thanks in advance.
    bh


  • 2.  Re: Converting PDF files to postscript

    Posted Wed October 24, 2007 11:03 AM

    Originally posted by: SystemAdmin


    The easiest way is to use a browser to view the file and then print from the browser. The problem with this is it can be hard to automate.

    AIX does not have any conversion utilities for this type of thing. It does have a text to postscript conversion program called enscript, but this will not work for converting PDF to PS.

    The Ghost tools such as ghostscript which is available on the Linux toolkit
    http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/doc/merz.htm
    I think there is a pdf2ps filter somewhere in that.

    Linux toolkit site
    http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/p/os/aix/linux/index.html

    Also realize that some printers can print PDF files directly. This may take some customization of the virtual printer, but you can try qprt -j! -dp -P queue.


  • 3.  Re: Converting PDF files to postscript

    Posted Thu October 25, 2007 03:19 PM

    Originally posted by: bhead


    Thanks for the response. I tried the ghostscript rpm (AIX toolbox) but I'm getting errors, played around with it for some time and gave up. I installed Adobe, think it's 7.0.9. Errored out, missing lib files. Took a while to figure out exactly what I was missing but I think I have it working now. In case anyone is interested here is the list of rpm's:

    libpng-1.2.8-5
    libtiff-3.6.1-4
    libjpeg-6b-6
    xrender-0.8.4-7
    xcursor-1.0.2-3
    gettext-0.10.40-6
    glib2-2.8.1-3
    atk-1.10.3-2
    freetype2-2.1.7-5
    expat-1.95.7-4
    fontconfig-2.2.2-5
    xft-2.1.6-5
    cairo-1.0.2-6
    pango-1.10.0-2
    gtk2-2.8.3-9

    After that it was complaining about the DISPLAY variable not being set but I don't want to use the gui. Coded a one liner like this:

    #!/usr/bin/ksh
    #
    1. test_adobe.ksh
    #
    /usr/bin/acroread -toPostScript
    from the command line:
    ./test_adobe.ksh < inputfilename > outputfilename

    That seems to work without the display error.
    > The easiest way is to use a browser to view the file
    > and then print from the browser. The problem with
    > this is it can be hard to automate.
    >
    > AIX does not have any conversion utilities for this
    > type of thing. It does have a text to postscript
    > conversion program called enscript, but this will not
    > work for converting PDF to PS.
    >
    > The Ghost tools such as ghostscript which is
    > available on the Linux toolkit
    > http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/doc/merz.htm
    > I think there is a pdf2ps filter somewhere in that.
    >
    > Linux toolkit site
    > http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/p/os/aix/linux/index.htm
    > l
    >
    > Also realize that some printers can print PDF files
    > directly. This may take some customization of the
    > virtual printer, but you can try qprt -j! -dp -P
    > queue.


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