Silent printing of a PDF in Python

Question

I'm trying to print a PDF with Python, without opening the PDF viewer application (Adobe, Foxit etc.). I need also to know when printing has finished (to delete the file).

Here I found this implementation:

import win32ui, dde, os.path, time
from win32api import FindExecutable
from os import spawnl, P_NOWAIT
...
pd = "C:\\temp\\test.pdf"
pdbits = os.path.split(pd)
readerexe = FindExecutable(pdbits[1],pdbits[0])

spawnl(P_NOWAIT,readerexe[1],"DUMMY") #I added "DUMMY" to avoid a weird error

time.sleep(2)

s = dde.CreateServer()
s.Create('')
c = dde.CreateConversation(s)
c.ConnectTo('acroview', 'control')

c.Exec('[FilePrintSilent("%s")]' % (pd,))

s.Destroy()

But it throws this exception at the ConnectTo line:

dde.error: ConnectTo failed

Someone knows how to solve it? Or has a different solution for silent printing? Or at list can give a link to a reference for ConnectTo? Could find nothing on the web about it.

Working with: Python 2.7, Windows 7, Acrobat Reader 10.0

Answer 1

I suggest you install GSView and GSPrint and shell out to gsprint.exe to print the pdf.

p = subprocess.Popen([r"p:\ath\to\gsprint.exe", "test.pdf"], 
                     stdout=subprocess.PIPE, stderr=subprocess.PIPE)
stdout, stderr = p.communicate()
print stdout
print stderr

I have used this in a industrial label printing solution, works great.

When the gsprint.exe program exits (i.e. after the call to communicate), you can delete the pdf file.