"virtual" printer

[Drag'nGT]

I'm at a loss on how to phrase what I'm looking for so I'm looking for guidance from you. Some sites want to print directly to a printer, skipping the print menu entirely. Is there an app or something that can fake an actual printer and print directly to a PDF?

Thank you very much!

 

[GGJstudios]

Is this what you're looking for? CUPS-PDF for Mac OS X

 

[lpeedin]

Doesn't OS X already have a virtual PDF printer? Look in the lower left corner of the print dialog for the PDF option.

 

[GGJstudios]

Doesn't OS X already have a virtual PDF printer? Look in the lower left corner of the print dialog for the PDF option.

That's a "Save to PDF" option, which is different from a PDF printer.

 

[lpeedin]

That's a "Save to PDF" option, which is different from a PDF printer.

So what's the difference in printing to PDF and Save "as" PDF?

 

[GGJstudios]

So what's the difference in printing to PDF and Save "as" PDF?

From the site I linked in my first post:

Why use this rather than a simple "Save as PDF" in the print dialog?

• Pressing return is faster.
• Batch-print through the writer to convert documents to PDF.
• Common save location for all generated PDFs.

How To Print Directly to PDF Without Opening a File

Also, in my experience some PDFs are restricted and won't allow the Save as PDF option, but will allow printing. For those, a PDF printer does the job.

 

[lpeedin]

From the site I linked in my first post:


How To Print Directly to PDF Without Opening a File

Also, in my experience some PDFs are restricted and won't allow the Save as PDF option, but will allow printing. For those, a PDF printer does the job.

Thanks, I'm still very much an OS X / iOS newbie - trying to glean all the info I can.

 

[GGJstudios]

Thanks, I'm still very much an OS X / iOS newbie - trying to glean all the info I can.

This may come in handy: Helpful Information for Any Mac User

 

[lpeedin]

This may come in handy: Helpful Information for Any Mac User

Thanks - got it bookmarked now

 

[Drag'nGT]

Is this what you're looking for? CUPS-PDF for Mac OS X

Thank you! Though this seems to not fix what I was interested in doing.

I'm trying to get Coupons.com to print directly to a PDF so I can choose to print the coupons as I need them instead of wasting paper printing ones that I end up not needing. Or if the coupon also prints an ink heavy ad at the bottom with a recipe I don't want...

At the moment it's giving me flack about not supporting my printer or the print settings and I don't know which to correct. Or how for that matter.

 

[NevilRead]

Got CUPS-PDF working but no large page sizes

I found the PDF feature on my CAD package gave terrible resolution. CUPS-PDF did the trick. I get much better resolution!

Unfortunately there are very few page sizes available.

I tried using a printer driver for a large format postscript printer, instead of the default postscript printer driver. Unfortunately that doesn't result in any output

Any ideas of how I can add large page sizes to the default postscript printer? Or is there a way to get other postscript drivers to work with CUPS-PDF? I've been trying Epson Stylus Pro 7880 since that is where the images are most likely to end up at a print shop.

Thanks

 

[lie2me]

Thank you! Though this seems to not fix what I was interested in doing.

I'm trying to get Coupons.com to print directly to a PDF so I can choose to print the coupons as I need them instead of wasting paper printing ones that I end up not needing. Or if the coupon also prints an ink heavy ad at the bottom with a recipe I don't want...

At the moment it's giving me flack about not supporting my printer or the print settings and I don't know which to correct. Or how for that matter.

Try using the Grab application to select the image you want to print. Save it as a Tiff file. Then open it with preview and select the size that you want to print. You can save it as a PDF first and then print it out.

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I found the PDF feature on my CAD package gave terrible resolution. CUPS-PDF did the trick. I get much better resolution!

Unfortunately there are very few page sizes available.

I tried using a printer driver for a large format postscript printer, instead of the default postscript printer driver. Unfortunately that doesn't result in any output

Any ideas of how I can add large page sizes to the default postscript printer? Or is there a way to get other postscript drivers to work with CUPS-PDF? I've been trying Epson Stylus Pro 7880 since that is where the images are most likely to end up at a print shop.

Thanks

PDFwriter is based on CUPS-PDF but uses the internal PDF capability of the Mac. I have not checked if this solves your problem because I am only printing 8.5 by 11.

The generic postscript printers seem to have a problem of where to put the output. They don't offer much in the way of sizing either.

 

[clarifix]

Is this what you're looking for? CUPS-PDF for Mac OS X

As a FileMaker developer, this saves my bacon. FileMaker doesn't give the option to NOT store any printer choice in the print script step ( ≥ FMP 10 OSX ).

By using this printer, in the print script step, it gets hard coded as well, but since nobody at the customer has it, FileMaker will default to their current printer. As for me, I don't waste any paper while testing the FileMaker scripts.

Cool. Thank you.