Printing PDF files

[doctordruidphd]

Warning - Flame on---

Is there ONE SINGLE application that will print a pdf file, without having to waste at least 50 pages and half an ink cartridge, and several frustrating hours, trying to get it set up, and then getting putrid quality output?

OK, return to rationality (not quite...)

I have a pdf file that I need to print out, and I need it 2 pages to a side, both sides. No matter what I try to use - okular or evince (nothing else seems to print at all) there seems to be no way to get them to do this simple thing. Okular prints the pages, but in miniature size. Evince used to do it right, but now not at all. Okular refuses to allow me to change printer settings.

I don't get it. Printing has always been a problem on Linux, but there really is no excuse for it at this stage of the game.

Part of the problem is there are too many fingers in the pie -- kde has its printer settings, hplip has its settings, cups has its settings, and it is impossible to tell which module a given application is using.

So, does anyone know of a way to do this? It ought to be a simple thing...

Done venting, back to wasting paper and ink.

[oshunluvr]

I warn you before you read this: You're not going to like it...

I have been printing PDF's with Okular for years without problems. In fact, my preferred way of printing web pages is to print to PDF first allowing me to view the output with Okular before wasting ink and paper. See this menu to show that Okular does indeed allow (and print) double sided:



However, I have on occasion encountered a PDF that is improperly created and thus will not print correctly.

Might it be that your printer is not properly configured or your PDF source is the culprit?

[doctordruidphd]

I saw that. I have tried pretty much every possible combination of settings, and there is no way okular is going to print. This is a camera manual -- you would think that for the money they charge, they could manage to provide a manual, but no, they give you a "file", which is not a manual. Anyway, so it falls to the buyer to figure out how to print it. Okular is printing the pages right, but they are printed credit-card sized, and the tops and bottoms are chopped off. It does manage to print normal pdf files like tax forms (funny thing, eh?) but it apparently cannot handle things that aren't whatever size it is expecting, which is most everything I am trying to print.

Edit: Okular just refuses to do the job. I remembered how I got Evince to do it -- I have to print, one side only since Evince won't recognize the duplexer -- all of the odd pages, turn them all over, then print the even pages. Oh, and go into Printer Configuration under kde System Settings and set it to "Scale to Fit", which option Okular seems to ignore. OK, so I got my manual printed out. Now all I have to worry about is how badly doing this has messed up photo printing.

There has to be a better way than this.

[Snowhog]

Can you attach the .pdf file here? I'll see what I can do with it.

[doctordruidphd]

It's here:

http://www.olympusamerica.com/files/..._Manual_EN.pdf

Got it printed out, after a fight. But if you can figure out how to do it, great.
The idea is to save space, so what I wanted to do is two pages per side, printing on both sides.

[oshunluvr]

Yeah, if you click on properties of the file it show's it is 5x7 in size. I don't mean to step on your rant, but the creator of the file has prevented you from printing full pages.

EDIT: however, I had no trouble printing double sided.

[doctordruidphd]

Thanks, the rant needs stepping on (most of them do). But I still say it's ridiculous that Okular can print on both sides, but can't adjust the page size, while Evince can adjust the page size just fine, but won't recognize the duplexer.

[oshunluvr]

While I agree with your wishes, you are asking for quite a bit of work. Basically, you'd have to burst (extract) each page, rotate their orientation, pair them properly, re-assemble the document, then print it. There are tools available that can do this but to my knowledge they're all Windows based and not cost free, like this one: http://www.pdfill.com/pdftool_reformat.html

Okular does a very good job as a viewer/printer considering PDF limitations and that the Okular dev's have no input into the format. As you have pointed out, Okular is not a PDF editor.

I personally have always wondered why there is a nearly total lack of good usable PDF tools for linux. It seems to me that if there was any real chance linux would ever replace windows at the desktop level this is one area where some major improvments would be required. Too many people/companies depend on the portability of PDFs to ignore the format.

[oshunluvr]

Hey, just found this:

http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/ope...df-studio/2388

[doctordruidphd]

PDF Studio looks good, and about time. Not worth it for someone who just wants to print now and then, but for those who need to seriously compose and edit, looks very good. There are actually quite a few tools in Linux for pdf manipulation, but they are command line based and about as intuitive as hacking a graphics library. If one just wants to do paste-up, there is Scribus, but it won't make real interactive PDF.

Still, Evince does do the page resizing, just that on my system, it can't see the duplexer. This I think is because there are so many different utilities involved in printer configuration -- cups, hplip, kde-printer-config, and probably lpr itself -- that it's impossible to sort out who is doing what to the output.

[oshunluvr]

Yeah, I didn't realize that PDF Studio wasn't free. Rather it has a free trial period.

[SteveRiley]

I personally have always wondered why there is a nearly total lack of good usable PDF tools for linux.

Because Adobe.

[doctordruidphd]

FYI, there is a program in the repositories called "pdfedit" that will allow one to add text and do other primitive editing to pdf files. I haven't used it extensively, but it's useful if all you want to do is fill out a form.