Print double sided pdf

[Tom Henkel]

We have been given a PDF that needs to be sent out with many of our letters and reports. The letters are single sided, and the PDF is double sided. We don't have control over the PDF, it is locked.
I have tried using the report.printer_override function to change the behavior of the printer to be duplex, but we are just doing a sys_print() of the pdf, and I think the report.printer_override works only with "reports" or "letters" created in Alpha. I was hoping there were options on the sys_print, but no luck.

This is the code I'm using. If anyone can see what I'm doing wrong, it would be greatly appreciated.

DIM vcprinter as C = UI_PRINTER_DEFAULT_GET()
DIM ans as C = ""
'see if they have the EBT Printer as a choice
temp=ui_printers_get()
'Select the correct printer name this should work for any OS
ans = alltrim(*for_each(foo,if((vcprinter $ word(temp,*counter(),crlf())),word(temp,*counter(),crlf()),""),temp))
delete options
dim options as P
dim options_text as C
' Before you can initialize 'options' using the property_from_string() function at least one dot variable must exist. therefore, create a dummy variable.
options.dummy = 1
options_text = <<%str%
<duplex="Horizontal">
%str%
' Create a dot variable from options_text.
' The dot variable contains the printer properties to be overridden
property_from_string(options, options_text)
' Now you can delete the dummy variable
delete option.dummy
' oldOptions will store the current printer options, so that we can restore them.
delete oldOptions
dim oldOptions as P
oldOptions.dummy = 1
' Set the printer override settings.
old_printer_name = report.Printer_override(ans, options, oldOptions)
sys_print("G:\BCBSS\Non Discrimination Statement-revised 3-1-17.pdf")
report.Printer_override(ans,oldOptions)

Tom

[Stan Mathews]

Re: Print double sided pdf

Does it need to stay double sided? You could scan the two sides to separate documents?

[Tom Henkel]

Re: Print double sided pdf

Stan,

Thanks for replying so quickly.

We actually WANT it to be double sided. With the amount of printing we do, anything we can do to reduce the number of pages produced helps.

[Allen Klimeck]

Re: Print double sided pdf

I have one of my printers duplicated in windows one to print full page & one to print booklet than just choose the correct print driver.

printer.PNG

[Tom Henkel]

Re: Print double sided pdf

Thanks, but we have any number of people here printing letters to network printers. I can't imagine having to change printer drivers on that many printers just to switch to duplex.

[Allen Klimeck]

Re: Print double sided pdf

Than I think that you will need to use a 3 party PDF reader with command line options to do the printing. I just tested SumatraPDF. I used the portable version.

In the interactive window:


abc = "C:\SumatraPDF\SumatraPDF.exe -print-to-default -print-settings duplex C:\SumatraPDF\ARPump.pdf"

?sys_shell(abc)

[Tom Henkel]

Re: Print double sided pdf

Allen,

Thanks, but that would involve installing the PDF reader on over 200 machines. Do you know if Adobe has a similar method?

[Allen Klimeck]

Re: Print double sided pdf

Adobe Reader does have or did have command line switches you would need to test your version. There is much concern in the Adobe community that they may be discontinued at any time. You would also need to add a driver as I said in my first post as I don't see any way to set printer settings with command line switches in Adobe Reader,

Command line switches:

Open a PDF file:

    AcroRd32.exe PdfFile

Open a PDF file in a new instance of Adobe Reader:

    AcroRd32.exe /N PdfFile

Open a PDF file at page 7:

    AcroRd32.exe /A "page=7=OpenActions" PdfFile

Open a PDF file with navigation pane active, zoom out to 50%, and search for and highlight the word "batch":

    AcroRd32.exe /A "zoom=50&navpanes=1=OpenActions&search=batch" PdfFile

Print a PDF file with dialog:

    AcroRd32.exe /P PdfFile

Print a PDF file silently:

    AcroRd32.exe /N /T PdfFile PrinterName [ PrinterDriver [ PrinterPort ] ]

The last command will open a new Adobe Reader window, print the PDF file and then terminate its window unless that window happens to be the only Adobe Reader window left: at least one Adobe Reader window will be left open.

SumatraPDF is free it does not need to be installed if you use the portable version you would just place the 'EXE' in a folder and use it from there to uninstall it just remove the folder.

http://www.sumatrapdfreader.org/free-pdf-reader.html

[GGandhi]

Re: Print double sided pdf

Stan,

Thanks for replying so quickly.

We actually WANT it to be double sided. With the amount of printing we do, anything we can do to reduce the number of pages produced helps.

is it not possible to set the printer properties to duplex in the control panel-printers-printer-preferences then all the print jobs will be duplex?
or this is not possible since there are lots of printers involved. (the printer should be capable of duplex printing)

[MoGrace]

Re: Print double sided pdf

Thanks, but we have any number of people here printing letters to network printers. I can't imagine having to change printer drivers on that many printers just to switch to duplex.

Hi Tom,
If the printers are networked from the server, all you need is to duplicate the printer driver on the server and set it to print in duplex mode then name it something lilke Canon-duplex. How many shared network printers are there?

[Tom Henkel]

Re: Print double sided pdf

Robin and G,

Thanks for your input, but the problem is that we print single sided letters from Alpha, and we need to also print this double sided pdf to go along with the letters. We are required by the state to include this double sided document with the single sided letters. It would be great if the workers would remember to just gram a copy of the double sided document and attach it to the letters, but that never works. We can't just go and change the printer parameters to do all double sided.

Tom

[MoGrace]

Re: Print double sided pdf

It sounds like you are doing the printing for a snail mail out. Since Alpha can print the letters and reports, why not let Alpha open the pdf and have the user print the copies you need to send by selecting the duplex printer in Acrobat Reader? Unless I am missing something as to what you are doing.

[Tom Henkel]

Re: Print double sided pdf

Robin,

Thanks, but we can't necessarily depend on the user to select duplex. We don't have a problem opening the document in Alpha, but we want to make it seemless to the user.

Tom

[DaveM]

Re: Print double sided pdf

Not sure if this qwill help, but have several required cbl sided forms to print. Made a repory for eacgh side, print front an dremind the user to reverse paper for back, then print

[Tom Henkel]

Re: Print double sided pdf

Thanks, Dave.

We would have created the document as a report except that the first page is portrait, normal English print.

The second page is landscape in 15 different languages.

Normally I can recreate a document, even if it is in Spanish, but 15 different languages is a bit too much. I'm not even sure we have the fonts to do it.