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shanraj

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Watched folders for printing

Dear All,

Like the watch folders option in Distiller, Is there any such option in Acrobat or Acrobat reader to print the PDF files automatically..?

The mission is that, I want to print the PDF files added to a particular folder automatically.. Is there any way to do it in Acrobat or is there any tool...???

Regards
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Karl Heinz Kremer
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No, Acrobat does not support this. You have to either use a 3rd party solution (I'm not aware of one that would do this), or create your own software. There are a number of modules available that you can use to do that.

Are you doing this in a server environment (meaning, can others use this service without having Acrobat installed on their own machines)? If so, you cannot use Acrobat. If it's for yourself you could use Acrobat. (The EULA does not allow the use on a server). If you want to use a 3rd party component, one option is XpdfPrint: http://www.glyphandcog.com/XpdfPrint.html
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shanraj

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My primary objective is to print the PDF files automatically... Like watch folders option in distiller, the tool should take and print the PDF files from the given folder automatically.

For one user or as a service for others? This is important.
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For one user only... Not to run like a server. That user also installed with Acrobat reader.

regards
Reader is a problem: You cannot fully automate printing with Reader (there will always be a dialog). Again, I'm not aware of a solution you can just buy/download/install and make it work, you have to do some programming to get this working. Because of the Reader limitation I would create a solution based on the XpdfPrint component that I mentioned above.
>"Like watch folders option in distiller, the tool should take and print the PDF files from the given folder automatically."

If you're on a Macintosh, you can use the Folder Actions feature to run an Applescript whenever a file is added to a certain folder. Here's a brief description of folder actions with a couple of example scripts.
http://www.apple.com/applescript/folderactions

If you're using Windows, it's not quite as straightforward, but still fairly easy to create such a function. This could be done in a scripting language like VBS, or my personal favorite, AutoIT3, (http://www.autoitscript.com) without too much trouble, or could even be done using just a standard batch file.

Note, it is possible to print a PDF file with the Acrobat Reader in Windows without having to deal with a dialog box. If you right-click on a PDF file and choose Print from the context menu, it will open the file with Reader, print it to the default printer, and close the file, without any dialogs. You can perform this same function from a command line simply by calling the Acrobat Reader executable with some parameters. Assuming you're using Reader version 7, the command would look like this:

"C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 7.0\Reader\AcroRd32.exe" /p /h  "My PDF Document.pdf"

This command line can be executed with a scripting language or batch file, so setting up a watched folder that will print any PDF placed in it to the default printer is just a matter of scanning the folder on a regular basis for files ending in .PDF, applying this command to each file found, then moving the file to a new location when done.

Similar functionality should be available in Mac OS X with a shell script, though I have never tried it.
The /p switch with Reader used to work this way, but since Reader 6 Adobe changed something, and I was not able to make it work reliably.
Here is one more 3rd party component that can be used to built such a solution:

PDFRasterizer: http://pdfrasterizer.net/

And here is a link to a solution that does work with Reader: http://www.planetpdf.com/forumarchive/104285.asp 
But you also have to write the part of the software that scans the directory and executes the print command when a new file is found.
Reader 6 was a mess in a lot of different ways. I see from visiting their site that Adobe finally wised up and are now letting people download version 5 again. Someone finally figured out that not everybody in the universe has Windows XP.  
Actually, earlier releases of Reader were always available: Either via the archive, or by specifying an older OS version (e.g. Win95) on the download page.
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Karl Heinz Kremer
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