I wrote a simple script recently for a user who was having trouble getting certain PDFs to print properly from his linux box (Fedora 10). I first suggested that he try converting the pdfs to ps and printing the resulting file. That worked but he found the process a bit tedious. Here’s the script I wrote to take care of the tediousness. It relies on the standard (in Fedora, at least) pdf2ps package. It should be pretty self-explanatory.
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| #!/bin/bash | |
| # grab first argument as pdf filename and generate ps filename | |
| thePDF=$1 | |
| thePS=$(echo $thePDF.ps) | |
| queueName=$2 | |
| usage() { | |
| cat<<EOF | |
| Usage: psprint [your pdf] [lpr queue]*" | |
| This command does three things:" | |
| 1. Converts the specified pdf file to ps" | |
| 2. Prints the ps file to your default lpr queue *(unless you specify another queue)" | |
| 3. Deletes the ps file" | |
| EOF | |
| exit 1 | |
| } | |
| if [ $# == 0 ]; then | |
| usage | |
| elif [ $# == 1 ]; then | |
| echo "Converting $thePDF …" | |
| pdf2ps "$thePDF" "$thePS" | |
| echo "Sending to default printer …" | |
| lpr "$thePS" | |
| echo "Cleaning up …" | |
| rm "$thePS" | |
| exit 0 | |
| elif [ $# == 2 ]; then | |
| echo "Converting $thePDF …" | |
| pdf2ps "$thePDF" "$thePS" | |
| echo "Sending to $2 …" | |
| lpr -P "$queueName" "$thePS" | |
| echo "Cleaning up …" | |
| rm "$thePS" | |
| exit 0 | |
| else | |
| usage | |
| fi |
Save the script to a location in your path (/usr/local/bin works) and you’re off.
Your Mac / Linux Guy 