Generate PDFs for free on all your Parallels VMs
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Jun 27, 2006, 12:39 PM
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rvanderveer Junior Member Join: Apr 2006 Posts: 9 |
Sorry to be a "Debbie Downer" (SNL reference), but... While this sounds interesting, I'm not sure what the advantage is over simply generating PDF's natively within each environment. While from the video makes it looks pretty seemless, it seems like it has to jump through a lot of hoops just to get a PDF (passing data between environments, etc). If you're looking for a free way to create PDF's on Windows, I highly recommend PDFcreator (free & open source). I have it installed on all my users, machines, and recommend it to my friends: http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/ For linux, I'm sure there's something just as seamless and free. |
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Jun 27, 2006, 02:05 PM
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javester Junior Member Join: Jun 2006 Posts: 11 |
Point taken. What SupaPDF Lite leverages is the fact that OS X has a built-in CUPS Server, Bonjour and PDF is integrated right into the operating system with Quartz. With this combination, you can have hassle-free PDF generation from any machine on your local network, including your Parallels VMs, without installing any SupaPDF client software. Taking advantage of your Mac's PDF generation capabilities is often just a simple matter of registering the SupaPDF printer. In Windows, this takes all of three-steps with the Bonjour Printer Wizard. In KDE, KDEPrint detects network printers as soon as you open it. In Gnome, just checking Detect Network Printers in the Print Manager is all you need to do. No client software to install. That's just it - no hoop-jumping required. :) And with Quartz, you can do all kinds of PDF operations: compress the whole PDF, compress just the images, encrypt, watermark, etc. etc. With most Ghostscript-based implementations like PDFCreator, you're limited to creating PDFs using the print metaphor. Granted, these extended PDF operations are not available in the current rev of SupaPDF Lite, but we'll be exposing a subset of them in upcoming versions. :D Also, we intend to use the software-less philosophy in the upcoming SupaPDF pro. The first page of any print job is scanned for Action hints. These hints can invoke these extended PDF operations as well as other workflow features like ZIP, FTP, and send to email. Check out the feature list on the website. Lastly, it makes sense to store your PDFs on your Mac. Why? In a word - Spotlight. :cool: Just give it a try, you just might like it. If not, you may want to take SupaPDF Pro for a spin once it comes out. |
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Jun 29, 2006, 08:56 PM
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carlosv Junior Member Join: May 2006 Posts: 6 |
CUPS and SupaPDF Got SupaPDF working on my Ubuntu and XP Parallels machines without any problems. Even my Dell gaming machine detected SupaPDF after I installed Bonjour for Windows without any problems. Anywhooo, got me interested in poking around CUPS in OS X. Found out that if you go to http://localhost:631, you can get more info on the SupaPDF printer. It says "nstextopdf" and "prettyprint" options are not supported. Any reason why those options are not used? |
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Jul 5, 2006, 10:35 AM
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javester Junior Member Join: Jun 2006 Posts: 11 |
nstexttopdf, as you might expect, is a CUPS filter to generate PDF files. It doesn't apply to SupaPDF since that is its main purpose anyway. As for prettyprint, its a code formatting and beautification option (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prettyprint) that also doesn't apply to the problem that SupaPDF addresses. Besides, prettyprint expects a plain textfile and SupaPDF gets Postscript files files as input. Anywhoo, just wanted to let ya'll know that SupaPDF is now at v1.3. It features:
You can get it from Apple (http://www.apple.com/downloads/macos...papdflite.html) or MTC (http://www.mactelchat.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=13) directly. Enjoy! :) |
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