Alambic : from PS to PDF easily



http://www.michelfavre.ch/catalogue2.html
Tuesday, 28-Oct-2008 02:56:32 CET

The anything to pdf for the lazy.



Introduction
The purpose of this project is to ease the transformation from ps to pdf. It is easy to ps2pdf, which is a command line utility under linux, but the quality is sometimes low, and it is un-easy to use especially in a a desktop environment.
The solution I found is not novative, it comes in the integration: the idea is to use pieces of software that does it already and to glue them together.

The mechanism


It is a tweaking of the lpd filter. Instead of interpretating Postscript for a printer, software transform them to pdf, and then send them either to a specified directory, or send it per email in a specified domain.
The interest is when used either with linux, windows or MAC OS. The lpd serving the alambic filter is seen as a standard networked PostScript printer, as a result you only have to install a networked postcript printer. I normaly use the apple laserwriter driver for MAC OS and windows. The trick to get the username to who you can send the email is either to make a public account (ouuaa! this is not nice for security nice), or to use the usual login mechanism. So samba (windows connectivity) or netatalk (apple connectivity) has to be configured in the good way.
Everything comes in the configuration.

If your intention is only to generate pdf under windows (without using the command line ps2pdf) read ce document (sorry french only), bu I am sure there is the same in english

Before begining


On your printer server have the following software installed :

In the heart of the Quick and Dirty Hack (Gruick Coded United TM)


The printcap file
The pseudo filter
The samba setup
Copyright modified-from-GPL-v2.J
Exim is set up as a local delivery domain

As an example


I use it to transform my resume from html to pdf.
It works with all applications :)
This page in pdf

TODO


libroscope
Have a look at libroscope. A really wonderful web site on libre methods (methods inspired from the libre software).



Mail me.
Of course it is all GPL, but great lazy ness for writing copyrights.
Julien Tayon 2001