Hi John;

   The old technic would work if your App was using the PrintDataWindow() command. That's because this command can be done many times in one print job. If the printer your print job was directed to was a postscript PDF printer, then the one print job (including all your DWOs) then produced one PDF file. Basically like a concatenated output.

  When using the new NativePDF feature, it only works on one DWO's primary buffer at at time. Thus, one PDF file per DWO occurrence.

  The only way forward using the new NativePDF feature that I have found (actually a trick I used from way back in the EAServer days) is to use the PDFToolKit to "stitch" the separate PDF files into one PDF after the end of the DWO array processing.

PDKTK

HTH

Regards... Chris

Chris  - maybe you can help with what looks like the last hurdle. I have my code finding the onboard Windows 10 (actually Winserver 2019 in this dev box, but production will be Win 10) PDF printers, but I have a problem with the SaveAs popup continuing to come up. See below red stuff please and tell me what you can, thanks!

//  ---- up to now all printer/driver setup was done hardcoded into the Registry
//RegistrySet &
// ("HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\CUSTPDF Writer", 'BypassSaveAs', RegString!, '1')  <<< PREVIOUS TECHNIQUE
//RegistrySet &
// ("HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\CUSTPDF Writer", 'OutputFile', RegString!,a_FileName)
//

--- current active

ll_count = UpperBound(a_dw)
IF ll_count > 1 THEN ll_print = PrintOpen()    <<<<< THS IS THROWING UP THE SAVEAS POPUP WINDOW, I JUST WANT THE FILE TO PRINT DIRECTLY TO FILENAME ASSIGNED IN THE DATAWINDOW. HOW TO SUPPRESS THIS POPUP?

Thanks much Chris. Afraid that didn't do it, not sure if I have all the values right, see attached shot. Still getting the popup / save.  Below is the printer I'm using, which sets without error in PrintSetPrinter(). It's just the dang PrintOpen() that doesn't like it.

STRING is_printer = 'Microsoft Print to PDF'
STRING is_driver = 'winspool'
STRING is_port = 'Ne01:'

Hi again Chris  - writing with some other attempts here as I'm getting further and further against the wall. I couldn't get any joy out of the Microsoft Print to PDF printer/drivers, so our guy put Nitropdf on the box, which creates a printer named "Nitro PDF Creator".  This is pretty widely used in our shop and elsewhere, not sure if you've used it. But the results are still flaky, as follows:

PrintSetPrinter()  - works, I get a 1 back setting the Nitro printer

PrintOpen()  -  using FALSE, it indeed doesn't open the printer selection window (like the MS PDF printer did, true or false), but I can't get anything but  -1 out of it. Terrible. Can't get by this to get a print job to spool psr's into a pdf, etc. 

My guys are reluctant to use Adobe Acro Pro and I can't make them. I did try the PDFToolkit which does work very well for stitching together existing pdf's, but I gotta get the pdf's first.  Any other clever ideas? I can't get why PB is so picky about this stuff.  Thanks in advance,  jt

Chris - addendum:

- I can get a print job number out of the Nitro if I let it open the printer selection window, choose Nitro, and let it sit there ready to spool, but

- I can get nothing but -1 out of PrintDatawindow() even when using this (valid) job number

Yikes.  

Hi again Chris & All - 

I'd like to submit one last question here as a broadcast/request to see if I can get the community's feedback on just what pdf printer/driver anyone is using that will work with the Printopen() command smoothly. As per earlier posts in this thread, I have now tried two different drivers (actually three), all with unsatisfactory performance/interaction with current PB commands:

- "Microsoft Print to PDF" - refuses to suppress print selection popup window on Printopen(), even with TRUE/FALSE argument.

- "Microsoft Print to PDF (redirected)" - does not throw up printer selection popup window; PrintDatawindow() works but sends pdf's relentlessly to the local machine (i.e. pdf's will not land in their dictated folder on network or runtime server...how it gets away with this is beyond me...going completely outside the network to a local machine!). 

- Nitropdf  - our company's standard PDF driver (as opposed to Adobe Acrobat, for vulnerabilities)  - Printopen() intermittently throws up printer selection window but on top of that throws up a spooler window that cannot be suppressed (per their helpdesk) and default filename and path also cannot be altered. .psr files do spool ok into a .pdf via Printdatawindow() / PrintClose() commands as desired, but other quirks nullify this success.

So, any input as to workable pdf printer/drivers that
a) will not continue to throw up printer selection window,
b) will allow pdf to be renamed/placed programmatically or otherwise?   

Thanks much.

Chris & All - FYI's I have handled the problem on this. CutePDF seems to be the magic pdf utility/driver, works just great if you add the "BypassSaveas" reg key like they instruct, and then the PrintOpen(), PrintDatawindow(), PrintClose().

So that's that. I do have one more Q though:  I am trying to get a .jpg logo to load to a psr that refuses to show up when viewing (or trying to spool to a pdf, as per above stuff) the psr. This logo is loaded via an embedded datawindow+stored proc. It loads just fine in an outer dw, and doing SaveAs Powersoftreport/psr type works fine, all other data loads, including two other embedded-loaded dw's, but the logo refused to (re)load, no matter where I put it. In the psr source I see the logo name clearly, no hardcoded path, just sitting in there by itself. If we could just plop the .jpg on the dw as a control, I'm sure it would show up. But it needs to load via this embedded dw. Thanks! 

Never mind on the last question gents, logos showed up somehow, it's all magic. Thanks and we can call this thread closed.

I wanted to add one last piece of info on this in case anyone else has to do the same setup with CutePDF. Not having the below setting correct drove us crazy as the app would not stop throwing up the SaveAs window no matter if the BypassSaveas=1 reg key was set. On top of that, it would work ok in source/IDE, but the builds would hang. Very important!  (you also need Ghostscript set up with CutePDF, per their instructions).

Go to Control Panel -> Device and Printers, right click on CutePDF writer and select "Printer Properties".
In Advanced tab, select "Print directly to the printer” instead of "Spool print document so program finishes printing faster".

As I started this whole pile of discussion I would like to add yet another and I believe final record of "total solution" to this pdf printing / orientation problem. In spite of my earlier attempts with other printer-drivers, all of them had something they wouldn't quite do, mostly in the orientation/auto-rotate area. I have since worked out the total solution for use in Powerbuilder in combo with Adobe Acrobat XI Standard. Since this was such a godawful pain to work out I thought I'd share it in case anyone ever needs to do the same thing. It is possible that CutePDF or others have some magic combination of registry keys / settings to enable all this "just right" but I haven't found any (NitroPDF definitely doesn't, they've told me so) except Acrobat XI.  See attached for what was the Final Solution!  And thanks for all the help.