Apache OpenOffice (AOO) Bugzilla – Issue 2660
print to PDF file silently outputs PS file if not configured
Last modified: 2003-09-08 16:56:16 UTC
The "print to PDF file" feature actually outputs a PostScript file, presumably in all components. (I have tried the word processor and the spreadsheet.) To reproduce: 1. Open a spreadsheet or word processor document. 2. File -> Print. 3. Check "Print to file". 4. In the file dialog, choose a file name ending in .pdf, and select "PDF" for File Type. Click "Okay". 5. Examine output file with "head". The file is a PostScript file. Expected result: Output file is a PDF file.
Reassigned to Joost.
Functions perfectly. You need to create a PDF print queue in the "spadmin" tool. Cookbook: open spadmin choose "New Printer" button select "Connect a PDF converter" choose "Next>>" button or select a different Postscript Printer Definition file (PPD) choose "Next>>" button select the apropriate command line with your mouse pointer choose "Next>>" button choose "Finnish" button start soffice and print to "PDF converter" queue
Thank you for the detailed instructions, which i will follow. However, i don't see how this is "works for me". If i don't know about these instructions and follow them ahead of time, if i choose to print to a PDF file, the program outputs a PS file. The user tells the program to do one thing and it does another. Furthermore, it's not obvious to the user that the program has not done what he wanted. Consider the following scenario: I need to send a spreadsheet document to a client in PDF format, so i open my spreadsheet in OpenOffice and select "print to PDF file". I see that the file has been written and e-mail it to the client. The problem is only discovered when the client is unable to open the document in Adobe Acrobat. The user and client probably conclude that OpenOffice outputs bad PDF files. This is bad. How was the user supposed to know that the file written was not indeed a PDF file? How was the user supposed to know that this feature had to be configured before use? If PDF hasn't been set up as you describe, than the operation should be made to fail and to alert the user that this feature needs to be configured. If PDF printing has not been configured, one of two things would be the desired behavior: 1. An alert pops up when the user tries to print to PDF. 2. The PDF option does not appear on the print dialog until the option has been configured. I think that the alert solution is better, because it lets the user discover that such an option is available. I'm revising the summary description to read "print to PDF file silently outputs PS file if not configured" of this bug and reopening.
Hello Leston, I'm sorry to say that I am not your opinion because you need to configure a PDF printer queue before being able to "print" to the queue. On the other hand you won't be able to print properly if you haven't configured a printer driver. In This case I won't accept this issue as a bug but as you seem to have an interest in enhancing usability in OpenOffice.org I will reassign this as RFE to Falco JA->FT: please have a look at the internal taskID 96578 as well as these topics are related
Re-assigned to Christian Jansen
Thank you for your suggestion. I agree to you, the 'print to PDF' could be more discribed more precisely. If the feature planning starts I will put this topic to agenda.
I would like to add that this problem is popping up, bug 1917 and bug 2688 are essentially identical to this one. In an article i read today by someone who is obviously quite knowledgeable, the author complains about not being able to get OpenOffice's print to PDF feature to work. I suspect that he too had never heard of spadmin and had no way of discovering that a PDF converter needed to be configured.
I ran into this problem as well today. Exactly as Leston described it. Now, both OpenOffice and I have eggs on our faces due to this problem. What we have now is very misleading to the user. Users are led to believe that they can print to a PDF when in reality something very different happens. This breaks a fundemental rule of UI design and non technical users will have no idea what to do when this happens. Heck, it took me half an hour of searching through mailing list archives and bugzilla before I ran across this thread. It would be a *very* nice enhancement to OpenOffice if a dialog popped up when a user selected "PDF" when printing to a file asking if he/she would like to configure a PDF converter if he/she had not already done so. I wouldn't think this would be difficult to do as it would only involve a little UI work. I would love to help, bug OO isn't written in Java :) To really solve this problem, would it not be possible to just package up GNU GhostScript ps2pdf as a separate executatble within the OpenOffice project and just magically call that behind the scenes for the user without making them fuss with connecting a PDF converter? Doing this, you could also eliminate the rather intimidating "choose a command line for the converter screen" and just call the executable you knew was already there. I really believe this should be a bug, rather than resolved later. Especially considering the duplicate bug reports on this issue. Adding self to CC list.
*** Issue 5817 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
*** Issue 1731 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
*** Issue 3917 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
This issue is supposedly addressed in the next version of OO. Check out issue 4016.
*** Issue 4893 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
This is fixed in the 643 relase.
fixed in 643
*** Issue 6863 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
*** Issue 7773 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
*** Issue 9736 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
*** Issue 6889 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Hi Leston, In OO.o we have a new feature calls PDF Export, does this fits your needs? If yes we should colose this task.
Hi Lestor, We have new feature called Export to PDF in OO.o 1.1 does this fits your needs? If yes I think we can close this task.
Yes, the export to PDF does what it should and the print to PDF function has been removed from the print dialog. So, i agree that this issue should be closed. (I don't have the permissions to do it myself.) This is a great improvement. Thanks!
Then I close this task.
Closed ...
*** Issue 12505 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***