Print PDF From Command Line
You can print a PDF from the command line using one of the
techniques mentioned in this article.
PDF Command Line Tool
In the program folder of the PDF printer you will find a command line
tool named pdfcmd.exe.
Among other things, this tool can print your PDF to a Windows printer.
It can print to a physical printer or another virtual printer.
PDFCMD command="printpdf"
Additional parameters for printing PDF documents
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input File name of PDF document to print.
pdfprinter (optional) Name of PDF printer used for the operation.
printer (optional) Name of the printer that should receive the print job.
firstpage (optional) First page to print. Default is the first page.
lastpage (optional) Last page to print. Default is the last page.
scaletofit (optional) Scale output to fit (yes|no). Default is yes.
bpp (optional) Bits per pixel. Valid values are 1, 4, 8, 24 (default).
docname (optional) Document name in printer queue.
maxdpi (optional) Maximum DPI resolution to print.
timeout (optional) Maximum timeout in seconds for the merge
to finish. The default is 60 seconds.
Example:
PDFCMD command=printpdf input="C:\Temp\A.pdf"
One of the benefits of this tool is that it does not depend on the
Adobe Reader being installed on the machine that prints the PDF.
It is most suited for sending the PDF to a physical printer because
it sends the PDF to the printer as a bitmap. This means that the
vector information stored in a normal PDF is not preserved.
In case you want to create a new PDF from the print job, then you will
find that it looks pixelated if you zoom the PDF view.
Using this option to print the PDF from a command line is good if you
find the output quality acceptable.
Acrobat Wrapper
In this approach, you can use the Acrobat Reader to print the PDF.
The Adobe Reader can print a PDF from a command line but it has some
drawbacks. The most important drawback is that the reader does not
close itself after printing the PDF. You can overcome this problem by
using the Acrobat Wrapper.
The benefit from using this method over the pdfcmd mentioned above
is that the vector information is preserved and if you print the PDF to
another PDF or XPS then you may find that the quality is better.
Printer API
PrintFile
The PrintFile method of the API will ask the operating
system to print the file to a specific printer. It uses a feature of
the operating system called the printto verb.
Verbs are actions that Windows can do on a file. Different programs
register themselves with different verbs on file types they support.
As an example the printto verb of .doc and .docx files is usually
handled by Microsoft Word.
If no printto verb is registered for PDF files then this method will not
be able to print PDF files. The Adobe Reader will register itself for the
printto verb of PDF files. Consider installing the
Acrobat Wrapper
to take over this verb if you want to be able to close the Adobe Reader after
printing.
The following VB script show how the COM edition of API can be used with
this method.
Rem -- Create the COM helper object.
set util = CreateObject("biopdf.PdfUtil")
Rem -- Print the file to a specific printer
util.PrintFile "C:\Test Page.pdf", "PDF Writer - bioPDF"
PrintPdf
You can also use the
PrintPdf
method to print PDF files. This is the API equivalent of the command line
tool PDFCMD mentioned above.
The following VB script show how the COM edition of API can be used with
this method.
Rem -- Create the COM helper object.
set util = CreateObject("biopdf.PdfUtil")
Rem -- Print the file to a specific printer
util.PrintPdf "C:\Test Page.pdf", "specific", "PDF Writer - bioPDF", "PDF Writer - bioPDF", False, 24, "Print PDF Example", 300, True, 1, 0, 10000
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