Delphi: How to print a PDF without showing it?

Question

I have been looking online for some time now, but I still haven't figured out how to print a PDF file in Delphi without showing the document itself, or a print dialog. I just want to open a file without showing it, and print it to the default printer.

I'm trying to print a batch of PDF documents, and there is no need for user interference.

Answer 1

There are some different possibilities to print PDFs... it depends whether you can require Adobe Reader to be installed (I don't know if you want to distribute your tool or just use it yourself).

1) It is possible to load the ActiveX control of Adobe Reader and use it for printing

pdfFile.src := 'filename.pdf'; 
pdfFile.LoadFile('filename.pdf'); 
pdfFile.print;

2) You can print PDFs with Adobe Reader itself (could be done with FoxIt too)

ShellExecute(0, 'open', 'acrord32', PChar('/p /h ' + FileName), nil, SW_HIDE);

3) You could also use Ghostview and Ghostprint

ShellExecute(Handle, 'open', 'gsprint.exe', PChar('"' + filename + '"'), '', SW_HIDE);

4) Or you could use a third party library... There are some available, but not all of them are free

• http://www.wpcubed.com/products/pdfviewer/index.htm
• http://www.quickpdflibrary.com/
• http://www.gnostice.com/PDFtoolkit_VCL.asp