PDF printing - Windows 7

[pauldb]

Hi,____RR v12.5.001 under Windows 7, trying to get PDF printing back to work. __I have bought the Amyuni PDF Creator as instructed on Liveware webpages about W7. Those pages say that "with the updated driver you will be able to pass PDF filenamed directly from R&R to the PDF Printer".____However it doesn^t work. My application gives a "cannot match printer or control port". My application does a Setprinter to "R&R PDF Export" as it did before.____I have copied the DLL^s from the Amyuni folder to my apps directory. __CDINTF.DLL__acfpdfu.dll____etcetera...____Can you tell me what DLL^s and runtime files I exactly need? ______TIA__Paul

[cstrasser]

Hi Paul,__Can you check to see whether there actually is a printer called "R&R PDF Printer" being created? If not, you^ll need to set one up.____The older versions of R&R on XP would create this printer at runtime (no user intervention needed). If you^ve got the Amyuni printer running on your system, it should be a standard, visible printer that you can name as necessary.____Regards,__Chris Strasser

[Thomas_Freitas_(Guest)]

Hi,____OK created the R&R PDF Export printer (which uses the Amyuni driver) and now I get an error "Printer not Activated, error code 41".__However the PDF is created. But this not very user friendly____I googled the error, it is coming from the Amyuni driver and is related to licensing.____Can Liveware comment on how to implement the PDF writer in R&R please?____paul

[Paul]

[updated:LAST EDITED ON May-31-11 AT 06:42 PM (EST)]Hi Paul,__We haven^t seen the "error 41" message come up in our testing. What additional information can you tell me about how you^re communicating between R&R and Amyuni?____Did you install their product and then rename their PDF printer to "R&R PDF Export"?____We may need to work on a remote session. You can send me a message at ^cstrasser^ ^at^ ^livewarepub^ ^dot^ ^com^____Regards,__Chris

[cstrasser]

Hi Chris,____I^m using the R&R DLL (rrrpt32.dll).____But I understand what is going on. I did not rename the Amyuni PDF converter, but I^ve created a new printer that uses the Amyuni driver. I hadn^t understood from your mail that I was supposed to rename the printer.____Probably this is the reason for the "licensing error". ____However, I now realize that buying the Amyuni PDF Convertor has been a waste of money because it is not allowed (or possible ?) to distribute the PDF printer DLL^s further. We have +/- 25 PC^s here at the Office. All with applications I wrote, and they all make use of Reportworks v12 and have PDF export possibilities built in. ____So now I upgraded to Reportworks v12.5 (because of Windows 7) and the PDF export is gone. That^s a major problem. I had understood from the announcement on the Liveware site that it was just a matter of buying the Amyuni PDF Convertor, so I did. But that is good for ONE workstation only. Can you confirm this? ____They (Amyuini)do have a developper version but that is very expensive (costs a lot more than Reportworks). 459 $ for the developper version PLUS 689 $ for each application !! Madness. ____Does Liveware have any plans to move over to another PDF product that can be integrated at low cost? ____TIA____Paul

[Paul]

I use CutePDF which works with all programs and it is free and there is no advertisement. When you select the CutePDF as a printer driver, (Not through and control file), a screen appears asking you what you want to name it and where you want it to be saved.____I recommend the CutePDF to all my customers.______Tom Freitas

[Paul]

Thomas, there are many free PDF writers around (CutePDF, PrimoPDF) but I need one that can be integrated into the application. __In other words, there must be API^s or functions built into the PDF driver so it can be controlled by an application. That was exactly what the R&R PDF printer did and it was great. __E.g. an application sends out mail message of an invoice as a PDF document. The invoice is an R&R report, it is converted to PDF without any user interaction. ____Paul__

[cstrasser]

Hi Paul,__I understand your frustration. Believe me, we didn^t want to pull the PDF driver from R&R, but Amyuni was pretty adamant that their license potential not be diluted by our policy of royalty-free runtime distribution (which is a big selling point for R&R to many ISVs and internal developers). Our policy implied that developers would be able to distribute whatever components that R&R needed to make their reports work and Amyuni said that people had to purchase individual licenses.____Like Tom, I^ve generally gone over to CutePDF for my day-to-day needs for generating PDFs from R&R. For programming, as you^ve noted, I^ve had to discover some workarounds and new techniques.____Unique to Amyuni, when you print to a named file from R&R, you get an actual PDF file. If you try this with any other PDF generator, you get a PostScript file. To verify this, pick CutePDF as your printer and send to a .PS file and edit the result with Notepad.____You have a couple of options here. One is that you can pass this file into the Acrobat distiller and have it create your PDF. The other is that you can use a component of CutePDF called GhostScript to do this. After a ton of research, I^ve found the necessary specs to make this work.____Both techniques are shown here (code fragments are FoxPro):____Acrobat Distiller:__==================__oPDF = CREATEOBJECT("PdfDistiller.PdfDistiller.1")__nStatus = oPDF.FileToPDF(fPSFile1, fPDFTarget, "standard.joboptions")__RELEASE oPDF____--------__This technique requires that the distiller resides on the computer that the job is being run. In my program, this is a server routine that periodically searches a set of locations for .PS files, adds them to a queue for processing and then deletes them when finished. I^ve left out a lot, but you can probably figure out the particulars you^d need in your implementation.__---------____GhostScript:__============__CutePDF generates a PS file that it feeds into GhostScript. GhostScript will by default be in the c:program filesgplgs folder (c:program files (x86)gplgs) on Windows 7 systems). The actual executable is gswin32c.exe____The structure of the command is below:____c:program files (x86)gplgsgswin32c -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -sOutputFile=Target.PDF -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE Source.PS____If you can call an external EXE from your program, you can build this command within your system and pass in the appropriate Source and Target files and make it do what you want. In my program, I^ve added this command to a button that generates a complex graphics-intensive flyer on demand.____I call R&R using a runtime table. I have to check for the presence of the rrunout.dbf file, the .PS and then kick off GhostScript when ready. I also have to check to see if the .PDF has been generated and post an appropriate message for that as well.____As an aside, I also use this technique to create JPGs from PS files that R&R generates, although this only works with single-page reports).____I^ll admit, it^s a lot of work to get the same results that used to be incorporated within R&R, but cost-wise, it^s free and for many developers, that^s an important consideration.______=====================__As to whether we^ll embed support for another distiller in R&R, we^re thinking about it, but we^re afraid that we^ll run into the same or similar licensing issues. And with a product like CutePDF, we^re fuzzy as to whether we^re allowed to use it within a commercial product.

[Paul]

Hi Chris, many thanks for your extensive answer. ____I will study your solution and see what I can do with it. But there are a few problems. __Adobe Distiller is not an option (way too expensive).__CutePDF might work, as you describe, but: I have an application that can run from any folder or drive. In other words: a portable application. It will run from a USB-key, and the application uses R&R to produce output and even PDF output if desired (in fact, all R&R runtime files can pe put in the applications folder and it will work. I never understood why your installer puts some dll^s (like the rrrpt32.dll) in de Windows or System32 folder). ____But I doubt that CutePDF can be installed on a flash drive (or even better, be incorporated in my applications^s installer). And often those modern PDF writers need .NET framework etc...__But I^ll look at it! ____BTW, since you seem to have a programming background, I will send you a PM about a R&R bug that is haunting me for years and has never been addressed by Liveware. ____cheers____Paul