How to print PDFs automatically

Question

We have a number of systems that produce PDFs that need to be printed. These are stored on a central document store. A message then goes onto a JMS queue that the document needs printing. A service, written in Java , picks these up and then invokes a native command. This is to call Adobe Reader with the /t flag. This causes the document to print without the GUI showing.

However since a power cut this no longer works. In the interim we are having to manually print hundreds of documents. We originally tried using Java printing, but the PDFs came out malformed.

What is a better solution to this?

Answer 1

Show us the code. I remember printing PDF with no issues using Java Print API. Below is the code, might need some modification, but should run as it is,

        InputStream in = new FileInputStream(file);
        DocFlavor flavor = DocFlavor.INPUT_STREAM.PDF;

        // find the printing service
        AttributeSet attributeSet = new HashAttributeSet();
        attributeSet.add(new PrinterName("FX", null));
        attributeSet.add(new Copies(1));

        PrintService[] services = PrintServiceLookup.lookupPrintServices(
                DocFlavor.INPUT_STREAM.PDF, attributeSet);

        //create document
        Doc doc = new SimpleDoc(in, flavor, null);

        // create the print job
        PrintService service = services[0];
        DocPrintJob job = service.createPrintJob();

        // monitor print job events
        PrintJobWatcher watcher = new PrintJobWatcher(job);

        System.out.println("Printing...");
        job.print(doc, null);

        // wait for the job to be done
        watcher.waitForDone();
        System.out.println("Job Completed!!");

Note:

• Flavor is not needed in 2 places, 1 place should be enough. You find that out.
• PrintJobWatcher is a nested class, to add a PrintJobListener.

Answer 2

Try using ICEpdf. Here's an example

Answer 3

This code only works if the printer supports PDF. Otherwise you need to use a native printer or a Java library. There is a blog article on this at http://pdf.jpedal.org/java-pdf-blog/bid/25566/Printing-PDF-files-from-Java

Answer 4

Despite the name, PDFNet SDK is also available for JAVA. There is an online sample showing how to print a PDF from JAVA: http://www.pdftron.com/pdfnet/samplecode.html#PDFPrint