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Old 06-05-2010, 01:58 PM   #1
smason
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Registered: Jun 2010
Posts: 3

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Print data to laser printer using an overlay form and save file as pdf


ok. i've done lot's of reading and still not able to find an answer or solution, so here goes.. i have custom programs written in Basis pro5. Standard output to a pdf virtual printer works fine. Using pdftk to overlay on to a form is hit or miss.... There are products out there like Unform that are just too expensive for my company. i have purchased another product from a company that prints the forms to the laser perfectly but i am incapable of capturing them and saving them as pdf's for archiving/emailing/faxing and i don't much care for this company.
if anyone has any recomendations i would love to hear them.... i might ever consider hiring someone to write the needed script(s).

Thank you!
 
Old 06-11-2010, 08:23 AM   #2
smason
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Registered: Jun 2010
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no one has any solutions so i decided to post my code. maybe someone has a better solution. this code works about 50% of the time and for the life of me i can't figure out why it fails..


### overlay form onto file
INFILE=$1
FORMFILE=$2
OUTFILE=$3
#rm $OUTFILE

#NEWFILE=`cat $INFILE|cut -c24-28`
#NEWFILE=${NEWFILE/ /}

sleep 1

#NEWFILE=/var/spool/cups-pdf/$USER/job_$NEWFILE-stdin.pdf

NEWFILE=/var/spool/cups-pdf/$USER/stdin.pdf
sleep 2

pdftk $NEWFILE background $FORMFILE output $OUTFILE

lp -dpl4 $OUTFILE
rm $INFILE

quit 0
 
Old 06-21-2010, 05:41 AM   #3
smason
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Registered: Jun 2010
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i've discovered the problem but still need help with a solution......... the resulting file after i pdftk is seeing the & and @ characters as printer escape codes when those characters are in my print data. file1.pdf has no issue ignorring those characters and prints fine. only after i pdftk file1 to background file2 out put file3 is there a problem. temporary solution is to first creat a txt file, use sed to substitute those characters so the resulting file3 can print, but i need a better solution... i have to have the & and @ characters print just as they are supposed to... anyone have an idea how to accomplish this?
 
  


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