Split PDF creation between two folders
Submitted by DMD on Wed, 2008-04-02 17:30.
We have PDFCreator running as a service on a Win2K3 server, and when all users click on the PDFCreator "Printer" all their reports are saved into on folder. The main problem is that there are two different departments that run large reports every couple of days, when one is running theirs the other can't use it.
What i want to do is create another "Printer" and point it to another folder, hopefully this will clear this block, and make it more easy for the users to find their reports.
I've tried to follow the "How to" that Micha posted here some time ago but didnt get very far. As instead of writing to the designated folders named within the INI files they all went to the first one.
Anyone got any other ideas ?
Thanks, but not really helpful as we want it on the one & only print server ( home to all the printers we have ).
So far we have tried :
Install PDFCreator with the /UseINI option.
Copy the PDFCreator.INI within the "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data" folder, and give it a differnt name (i.e end up with PDF1.ini & PDF2.ini)
edit each ini so it as a different "AutosaveDirectory" and make sure that "UseAutosave" has the value of 1.
Make a copy of the shortcut of PDFCreator on the desktop.
in each shortcut add '/OptionsFile"C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\PDFx.ini" ' to the end of the Target.
Now add a new Printer and create a new printer port to go along with the one that PDFCreator made when it was installed.
For each printers port, add the the following to the ports configuration "-OptionsFileC:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\PDFx.ini"
Now when we ask for a Test Page - the first pdf printer used sends the file into the correct folder as per its ini.
When printing a Test Page from the second pdf printer the page gets sent to the firsts folder. It seems that when you run the Binary the first time the ini is read in and cached somewhere and is set as the default PDFCreator.ini
A way round this is to run the second shortcut from the desktop, which over rides the ini in cache and from then on PDFCreator follows its settings.
This is ok, although not ideal, if you are sitting at your machine and do this as & when you want to change the PDF settings, but if your running the creator as a service on a server not so useful.
What would be better is if the program looks at the printers port settings and uses only the ini pointed at by the -OptionsFile setting to change things like paper size, or save locations.
Looking at the Help File - this is what it seems its suppose to do .. "/OptionsFile
Specifies the particular options file PDFCreator should use.
Examples: pdfcreator.exe /OptionsFile"C:\MyPDFCreator.ini"
(Hint: With this parameter (and a work around) you can use more than one printer on a machine.)"
Thing is WHAT is this "work around" ?