Weblog entry #128 for simonw
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#128
Producing PDF in Debian Etch / SID
Posted by simonw on Wed 10 Jan 2007 at 18:47
Filed wish list bug on this one.
Free software in the form of Open Office, got to including a "Save to PDF" as standard, whilst the dark side was using weird third party printer drivers, however sometimes one might want to make a PDF (I'm not a fan of them myself) from an application that doesn't just offer it as a built in format, and that is where CUPS-PDF comes in, like the evil Microsoft way, one can just "print a document to PDF".
apt-get install cups-pdf
In GNOME CUPS printer manager (or CUPS) "Add Printer" says it has a "Virtual PDF" printer ready to roll.
Click that, and the process comes to a grinding halt, I must specify which "Driver" or "PPD" file to use, and I don't have a clue which one I should choose.
Using my knowledge of Debian documentation standards I looked in /usr/share/doc/cups-pdf.
/usr/share/doc/README.Debian told me I needed the PostscriptColor PPD file.
An inspired guess that they would include the driver with the software led me to try;
dpkg -L cups-pdf
Which revealed the answer;
/usr/share/ppd/cups-pdf/PostscriptColor.ppd
This is so crass an end user experience. Okay it took me about 60 seconds, but it was 60 seconds to find the default value for a field about which I know nothing, care less. Someone less fluent with computers would have run away screaming.
Once the printer is installed, normality is restored. When you print, the file appears in the "PDF" folder in your home directory. if there is no "PDF" directory it creates one for you (it moved from "cups-pdf" in earlier versions apparently).
This is a classic example of how needing to know "one extra detail" affects software usability.
The README.Debian file suggests not filing a bug if you aren't using the right driver, but missed its chance to say where that driver was, or that it was included. Those bug reports were telling us something was wrong, in this case that the documentation was incomplete, and that the printer installation over complex.
Free software in the form of Open Office, got to including a "Save to PDF" as standard, whilst the dark side was using weird third party printer drivers, however sometimes one might want to make a PDF (I'm not a fan of them myself) from an application that doesn't just offer it as a built in format, and that is where CUPS-PDF comes in, like the evil Microsoft way, one can just "print a document to PDF".
apt-get install cups-pdf
In GNOME CUPS printer manager (or CUPS) "Add Printer" says it has a "Virtual PDF" printer ready to roll.
Click that, and the process comes to a grinding halt, I must specify which "Driver" or "PPD" file to use, and I don't have a clue which one I should choose.
Using my knowledge of Debian documentation standards I looked in /usr/share/doc/cups-pdf.
/usr/share/doc/README.Debian told me I needed the PostscriptColor PPD file.
An inspired guess that they would include the driver with the software led me to try;
dpkg -L cups-pdf
Which revealed the answer;
/usr/share/ppd/cups-pdf/PostscriptColor.ppd
This is so crass an end user experience. Okay it took me about 60 seconds, but it was 60 seconds to find the default value for a field about which I know nothing, care less. Someone less fluent with computers would have run away screaming.
Once the printer is installed, normality is restored. When you print, the file appears in the "PDF" folder in your home directory. if there is no "PDF" directory it creates one for you (it moved from "cups-pdf" in earlier versions apparently).
This is a classic example of how needing to know "one extra detail" affects software usability.
The README.Debian file suggests not filing a bug if you aren't using the right driver, but missed its chance to say where that driver was, or that it was included. Those bug reports were telling us something was wrong, in this case that the documentation was incomplete, and that the printer installation over complex.