Print a file in the background

[Guest]

I want to create a presentation that will allow me to display a slide, then
print a PDF of a spec sheet in the bacground without displaying it on screen.
IE, a slide points out about print quality, then have a document print from
an attached printer to demonstrate the printers abilities without showing the
sample document on screen.

Thanks

 

[Guest]

Insert an action button and set the Action Settings to:
Run program:
"C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 6.0\Acrobat\Acrobat.exe" /p /h "%1" where %1
equals the full path to your pdf file.

If you're going to distribute this file, you'll be making the assumption
that everyone has Adobe installed to the default folder and if your document
is in the same folder as your presentation you may be able to get by without
the path. You'll have to try it. And it will prompt you about viruses.

Glenna

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Insert an action button and set the Action Settings to:
Run program:
"C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 6.0\Acrobat\Acrobat.exe" /p /h "%1" where %1
equals the full path to your pdf file.

If you're going to distribute this file, you'll be making the assumption
that everyone has Adobe installed to the default folder and if your document
is in the same folder as your presentation you may be able to get by without
the path. You'll have to try it. And it will prompt you about viruses.

And it may not work in the most recent versions of Reader/Acrobat.
And most won't have Acrobat; they'll have Reader instead and the path will vary
depending on the version. And oh, just lots of other gotchas.

Your pal,

Mister Optimistic

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

I want to create a presentation that will allow me to display a slide, then
print a PDF of a spec sheet in the bacground without displaying it on screen.
IE, a slide points out about print quality, then have a document print from
an attached printer to demonstrate the printers abilities without showing the
sample document on screen.

I'm assuming that this is to run on a PC that's under your control (as opposed
to a PPT that'll be emailed/distributed on CD, etc). If that's correct,
Glenna's solution will probably work. Ignore Mister Optimistic. He always
likes to rain on everybody's parade and on this one he's raining caveats and
dogs.

Before settling on a PDF solution, test carefully. PDFs don't carry
printer-specific information, so it may not be possible to invoke the
printer-specific features you need.

Another approach is good 'ol DOS. You can always create a print-to-disk file
from any app targeted at any specific printer. The result is a disk file that
contains whatever data would ordinarily have been sent to the printer.

To print it, you could create a BAT file containing:

rem Start of file
@echo off
rem Substitute the name of your print file for MyPrintFile.prn
rem Substitute the correct name of your printer port for LPT1:
copy /b MyPrintFile.prn LPT1:
exit
rem END of file

This will only work with parallel-connected printers.
There may be software that lets you do this with a USB printer; don't know
offhand.