Print to PDF with Microsoft Print to PDF printer - c#

I try to print a ms project file to pdf without any additional action needed.
I have tried several solutions without success.
PrintDocument doc = new PrintDocument()
{
//DocumentName = safeDir + fileName,
PrinterSettings = new PrinterSettings()
{
// set the printer to 'Microsoft Print to PDF'
PrinterName = "Microsoft Print to PDF",
// tell the object this document will print to file
PrintToFile = true,
// set the filename to whatever you like (full path)
PrintFileName = safeDir + fileName,
}
};
doc.Print();
If i try this approach like showed here, I get an empty pdf file.
Manually printing to PDF works fine.
Any suggestions to solve this problem?

My Spidey Senses tells me this is most likely caused by commas in the file name
This is a known bug when printing to PDF. Use a different driver or
don't put a comma in the file name
Note : Its not only from code, its in general in certain situations.
Disclaimer : this is a complete and utter guess
Check these other links out
Bug in "Print to PDF" and "Print to XPS" in Windows 10? comma in filename results in zero-byte file
Microsoft Print to PDF not working
Found a bug in Microsoft Print to PDF
Microsoft Print to PDF in Windows 10

Related

C# - Save XML's plain text as PDF instead of converting [duplicate]

I am trying to save xml file as PDF as it is. In other words, I am trying to create PDF file that shows content of XML like a screenshot (like raw screenshot). My client somehow needs it like this. I couldn't really find the same question on stackoverflow. Is there anyway I can do this using iText or some other library?
Thank you!
First extract your text from XML file:
XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
doc.Load("c:\\temp.xml");
string myText;
foreach(XmlNode node in doc.DocumentElement.ChildNodes){
myText= node.InnerText; //or loop through its children as well
}
Then create a PDF file and pass this text into it
in this case here I use PDFFlow library to create pdf documents
var DocumentBuilder.New()
.AddSection().AddParagraphToSection(myText).ToDocument()
.Build("Result.PDF");
If you load the xml in a browser you can easily save to searchable PDF
In a shell call (replace msedge with chrome if necessary)
"path to\msedge.exe" --headless --disable-gpu --print-to-pdf="out path\xml.pdf" --enable-logging "file://path to A\file.xml"
Enable logging helps as it can take a long time to process without any visual progress.
[0818/231038.640:INFO:headless_shell.cc(648)] Written to file ...\xml.pdf.
You can also add --print-to-pdf-no-header. Also if adding some style consider --run-all-compositor-stages-before-draw but I have no idea if that works for xml.
ForGet Image --screenshot as a 40 Page high XML as JPEG does NOT translate well to PDF. I tried :-)
If you want that as an image PDF then Re-Print the PDF to PDF using a command line viewer such as this since it is ONLY Print As Image output :-) also note it can in addition read the XML in Black and White (NO linting).
But have not tested how well it does XML2PDF via command line print
SumatraPDF -print-to "My Print to PDF" "path to\filename.pdf" (or xml in mono)
Note "My Print to PDF" is a promptless port you need to configure as required.

MSProject Add-In to convert .mpp in .pdf with given name and date

I am developing an Add-In for MSProject 2013 and higher.
I want to safe/convert the opened .mpp file into an .pdf file without having an additional dialog for the user. He just presses the button an gets an notification when everything is done.
I need to save it in a spacific path and user a defined start and end date.
I tried the SaveAs-methode, but since it takes an MSProject.PjFileType as input and the is no option for pdf, I can't use this. PjFileFormat Enumeration
An other approche was using the DocumentExport-methode.
app.DocumentExport(#"D:/doc_exportqwre.pdf", MSProject.PjDocExportType.pjPDF, true, true, false, System.DateTime.Now, System.DateTime.Now.AddDays(42));
But in this case i only see 3 weeks at once. It is zoomed in and haven't found a way to change this. Changing the View in MSProject, before exporting does not help.
A third way is using the Windows10 pdf-printer:
// generate a file name as the current date/time in unix timestamp format
string file = (string)(DateTime.UtcNow.Subtract(new DateTime(1970, 1, 1))).TotalSeconds.ToString();
// the directory to store the output.
string directory = Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.MyDocuments);
// initialize PrintDocument object
PrintDocument doc = new PrintDocument()
{
PrinterSettings = new PrinterSettings()
{
// set the printer to 'Microsoft Print to PDF'
PrinterName = "Microsoft Print to PDF",
// tell the object this document will print to file
PrintToFile = true,
// set the filename to whatever you like (full path)
PrintFileName = Path.Combine(directory, file + ".pdf"),
}
};
doc.Print();
but this way I can not give the starting and end date. This results in having way to many pages I do not need.
Is there any chance to achieve my goal with changing one of my solutions or is there any other option?
After not finding a proper solution, i used the windows 10 Printer and simulated keyboard events to insert the path in the dialog, which opens. With Enter i start the printing.
I know it is not a nice solution, but it is the onlyway i got it to work

Sending file to print not working using System.Drawing.Printing

I'm trying to send a file to print without opening it trough Adobe as suggested by several Answers here; instead, I'm using the PrintQueue library (from System.Drawing.Printing).
What I've accomplished so far:
I have the correct PrintQueue referenced as pq:
PrintQueue pq; //Assume it's correct. The way to get here it isn't easy and it is not needed for the question.
// Call AddJob
PrintSystemJobInfo myPrintJob = pq.AddJob();
// Write a Byte buffer to the JobStream and close the stream
Stream myStream = myPrintJob.JobStream;
Byte[] myByteBuffer = ObjectIHave.ToArray(); //Ignore the ObjectIhave, it actually is Linq object which is correct as well.
myStream.Write(myByteBuffer, 0, myByteBuffer.Length);
myStream.Close();
As I understood from the Microsoft Library it's correctly done but it is not working. Any ideas?
EDIT: Debugging the code I can see that something is being send to the printer but it seems the file is not sent.
You need to render your PDF to the printer. Calling the shell print verb on the file would be the ideal means to do that. If you insist on doing the low level rendering yourself then I recommend using a library like Ghostscript.NET and choose the mswinpr2 device as output.
The mswinpr2 device uses MS Windows printer drivers, and thus should work with any printer with device-independent bitmap (DIB) raster capabilities. The printer resolution cannot be selected directly using PostScript commands from Ghostscript: use the printer setup in the Control Panel instead.
See SendToPrinterSample.cs for example:
string printerName = "YourPrinterName";
string inputFile = #"E:\__test_data\test.pdf";
using (GhostscriptProcessor processor = new GhostscriptProcessor())
{
List<string> switches = new List<string>();
switches.Add("-empty");
switches.Add("-dPrinted");
switches.Add("-dBATCH");
switches.Add("-dNOPAUSE");
switches.Add("-dNOSAFER");
switches.Add("-dNumCopies=1");
switches.Add("-sDEVICE=mswinpr2");
switches.Add("-sOutputFile=%printer%" + printerName);
switches.Add("-f");
switches.Add(inputFile);
processor.StartProcessing(switches.ToArray(), null);
}
If the file has to be printed in both sides you just need to add:
switches.Add("-dDuplex");
switches.Add("-dTumble=0");
You can not just write PDF bytes to a print job. The printer doesn't know how to handle it. The RAW data you send to the printer must describe the document in a printer language specific to the printer. That's what the printer driver does.
You can not print a PDF by just sending it to the printer. You need some piece of software that renders the PDF and then sends the rendered image to the printer.
As the documentation states:
Use this method to write device specific information, to a spool file, that is not automatically included by the Microsoft Windows spooler.
I enhanced the important part of this information.

iText GetTextFromPage exception with inline image

I have the same problem as was discussed here, which was not solved. My objective is to extract the text from an existing pdf file. I get the error message Could not find image data or EI for a certain pdf, which I cannot share as a sample. It works for other pdfs, with the following code
string fileURI = "C:\\Test\\Sample.pdf";
PdfReader reader = new PdfReader(fileURI);
ITextExtractionStrategy strategy = new LocationTextExtractionStrategy();
string s = PdfTextExtractor.GetTextFromPage(reader, 1, strategy);
Debug.WriteLine(s);
I am using iTextSharp 5.5.0 and tried changing found == 1 to found <= 1 as suggested in other posts. It does not help.
Would it help to remove all images in the pdf? I really just need the text. Which commands from iText could help me with this?
I downloaded the trial version of Acrobat to create a version of the pdf file, that I could share. After opening the file and saving it again as "Optimized PDF" over the Acrobat, the code was working and I could extract the text.
So the solution to the problem is probably opening each file in Acrobat and saving it again with the right settings using the Acrobat reference and then extracting the text.

Print PDF using GhostScript

I am in need of your support on the following issue since its pulling me for a while. We have a small c# utility, which print given PDF using GhostScript. This print as expected but fail to retain the page formatting’s. However, pages are printed as expected when I switch Adobe Acrobat in place of GhostScript. So I presume, I am making some obvious mistake on the GhostScript's command line arguments .
Background
Following is the core c# logic, which print a given PDF file with varying style across each pages. The given PDF file has pages;
with inconsistent font style and colour
some of the pages have normal font size where others are printed in extra small
some of the pages has recommended margin but others have very small margin
some of the pages are in colour and the rest in grey.
some of the pages are landscape in style where other are portrait
In concise, the PDF which I am trying to print is nothing but a consolidation (joining individual pdfs into one large pdf) of numerous small sized pdf document with varying fonts style, size, margins.
Issue
Following logic use GhostScript(v9.02) to print PDF file. Though the following logic print any given PDF, it fail to retain the page formatting including header, footer, font size, margin, orientation ( my pdf file has pages those both landscape and portrait).
Interestingly, if I use acrobat reader to print the same PDF then it will print as expected along with all page level formatting's.
PDF specimen: First section, Second section
void PrintDocument()
{
var psInfo = new ProcessStartInfo();
psInfo.Arguments =
String.Format(
" -dPrinted -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE -dNOSAFER -q -dNumCopies=1 -sDEVICE=ljet4 -sOutputFile=\"\\\\spool\\{0}\" \"{1}\"",
GetDefaultPrinter(), #"C:\PDFOutput\test.pdf");
psInfo.FileName = #"C:\Program Files\gs\gs9.10\bin\gswin64c.exe";
psInfo.UseShellExecute = false;
using (var process= Process.Start(psInfo))
{
process.WaitForExit();
}
}
I think you asked this question before, and its also quite clear from your code sample that you are using GSView, not Ghostscript.
Now, while GSView does use Ghostscript to do the heavy lifting, its a concern that you are unable to differentiate between these two applications.
You still haven't provided an example PDF file to look at, nor a command line, though you have now at least managed to quote the Ghostscript version. You need to also give a command line (no I'm not prepared to assemble it from reading your code) and you should try this from the command line, not inside your own application, in order to show that its not your application making the error.
You should consider upgrading Ghostscript to the current version.
Note that a quick perusal of your code indicates that you are specifying a number of command line options (eg -dPDFSETTINGS) which are only appropriate for converting a file into PDF, not for any other purpose (such as printing).
So as I said before, provide a specimen file to reproduce the problem, and a command line (preferably a Ghostscript command line) which causes the problem. Knowing which printer you are using would probably be useful too, although its highly unlikely I will have a duplicate to test on.
Answer - UPDATE 16/12/2013
I was managed to get it fixed and wanted to enclose the working solution if it help others. Special thanks to 'KenS' since he spent lot of time to guide me.
To summarize, I finally decided to use GSView along with GhostScript to print PDF to bypass Adobe. The core logic is given below;
//PrintParamter is a custom data structure to capture file related info
private void PrintDocument(PrintParamter fs, string printerName = null)
{
if (!File.Exists(fs.FullyQualifiedName)) return;
var filename = fs.FullyQualifiedName ?? string.Empty;
printerName = printerName ?? GetDefaultPrinter(); //get your printer here
var processArgs = string.Format("-dAutoRotatePages=/All -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -sPAPERSIZE=a4 -dFIXEDMEDIA -dPDFFitPage -dEmbedAllFonts=true -dSubsetFonts=true -dPDFSETTINGS=/prepress -dNOPLATFONTS -sFONTPATH=\"C:\\Program Files\\gs\\gs9.10\\fonts\" -noquery -dNumCopies=1 -all -colour -printer \"{0}\" \"{1}\"", printerName, filename);
try
{
var gsProcessInfo = new ProcessStartInfo
{
WindowStyle = ProcessWindowStyle.Hidden,
FileName = gsViewEXEInstallationLocation,
Arguments = processArgs
};
using (var gsProcess = Process.Start(gsProcessInfo))
{
gsProcess.WaitForExit();
}
}
You could use GSPRINT.
I've managed to make it work by only copying gsprint.exe/gswin64c.exe/gsdll64.dll in a directory and launch it from there.
sample code :
// This uses gsprint (mind the paths)
private const string gsPrintExecutable = #"C:\gs\gsprint.exe";
private const string gsExecutable = #"C:\gs\gswin64c.exe";
string pdfPath = #"C:\myShinyPDF.PDF"
string printerName = "MY PRINTER";
string processArgs = string.Format("-ghostscript \"{0}\" -copies=1 -all -printer \"{1}\" \"{2}\"", gsExecutable, printerName, pdfPath );
var gsProcessInfo = new ProcessStartInfo
{
WindowStyle = ProcessWindowStyle.Hidden,
FileName = gsPrintExecutable ,
Arguments = processArgs
};
using (var gsProcess = Process.Start(gsProcessInfo))
{
gsProcess.WaitForExit();
}
Try the following command within Process.Start():
gswin32c.exe -sDEVICE=mswinpr2 -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE -dNOPROMPT -dNoCancel -dPDFFitPage -sOutputFile="%printer%\\[printer_servername]\[printername]" "[filepath_to_pdf]"
It should look like this in C#:
string strCmdText = "gswin32c.exe -sDEVICE=mswinpr2 -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE -dNOPROMPT -dNoCancel -dPDFFitPage -sOutputFile=\"%printer%\\\\[printer_servername]\\[printername]\" \"[filepath_to_pdf]\"";
System.Diagnostics.Process.Start("CMD.exe", strCmdText);
This will place the specified PDF file into the print queue.
Note- your gswin32c.exe must be in the same directory as your C# program. I haven't tested this code.

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