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artur_dietrich

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Printing PDF Files in a Network Printer from UNIX/AIX

Hello.

I need to print PDF files from my UNIX AIX but I have not driver for the printers. So
I have used the command RSH on UNIX AIX to remotely run a batch (.bat) script in a remote machine running Windows 2003 Server, which has the drivers and RSHD daemon running (http://sourceforge.net/projects/rshd , version 1.7) but this RSHD often bugs and I need to restart the server due to just restarting the application do not works. The remote batch calls Acrobat Reader (acrord32) with especific flags to print PDF files by command line, wich is my main interest. Note that many RSHD (daemons) I found, do not run GUI Aplplications or dont bring it to foreground, and this is necessary for the acrobat, for instance.

So I need an alternative solution to print pdf files from aix/unix OS, considering I have not the DRIVERS of the printers to print directly to UNIX queue  (lp command);

The current solution works, but bugs many times a day. I need another solution.

Best Regards.

ART
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Martin_J_Parker
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Do you have any Postscript printers you could use?
There are pdf to PS converters like Xpdf ( http://www.foolabs.com/xpdf/about.html ) which might help.

Another option if rshd is crashing on Windoze is to install Samba on AIX and have the Windows machine pull the files from AIX rather than pushing the files with rsh.  http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/aix/library/au-aix_samba/
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If you install pdf2ps (part of ghostscript and free), you can convert the pdf to postscript and then print it on any network attached postscript printer. You will need to set up an AIX print queue to this printer if you do not already have one.

ghostscript is available here:

http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/power/software/aix/linux/toolbox/alpha.html

Write back if you need help with any of this.
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artur_dietrich

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Tx Martin and Carlmd. Unfortunately our printers do not support PS Language. To pull files from unix coudl be a solution, but I had to build an application (bat, C, Delphi, Powershell, etc)  to "pool" the directory. Read Files -> Print -> Delete -> ......... loop -<

Artur.
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Martin_J_Parker
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A Cygwin NFS server might be another option:
http://www.csparks.com/CygwinNFS/index.xhtml
You can also use ghostscript to convert from pdf to pcl. I assume you have HP compatible printers?
Carlmd, tx for the response. Outr printers are Kyocera and Sharp.

Martin, Cygwin is a very interessant tool.  I have downloaded and configured rsh server on cygwin and it has been working but yet I am going to test open GUI applications on windows from linux rsh. Soon I come back to notice the result...

Best Regards. Artur  
I have installed RSH server on Cygwin and it works...