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A Free Pdf Maker for Visual Fox Pro
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Update Version
2 Download click here
My Original Version of the pdf maker is still available
below but what I hoped would happen did. Thanks to the work of Paul
James and others (Check the source code) this
new version has s a complete install, and much better than my original
work.
Thank you Paul.
Bob Lee 3/2003
Pdf Maker version 1
PDFMaker
is not just another windows PDF print driver designed to allow you to
send anything to it . The difference is this program works from inside
Visual Fox Pro to allow you to use all your existing fox reports and
put them on your fox web server or produce a paperless solution for
printed reports.
A Sample VFP Created
and Converted PDF File is here
This program is designed to be run
either as a server (with your web server) or sand-alone for desktop
usage.
By following these instructions and
you should have a PDF Maker, written in pure VFP code in a matter of
minutes. PDF
Maker uses GhostScript as its internal processor, but don't worry with
these simple instructions you to install and configure it properly quickly.
PDF Maker does NOT make use of Redmon or any other Shareware Products.
Click Here to to Download
PDF Maker
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Step
1
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Get
and Configure the Adobe PS Driver
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Download the Generic
Postscript Driver from adobe.com from here
or below.
http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=1500
Go to start printers, (or control panels -printers) and select the newly
created printer as your default and right-click to properties sheet of
the Generic Adobe postscript driver. Select the advanced tab and select
new driver. From listing of manufactures select HP and the printer name
of HP Color Laser jet 8500 PS.
Then press apply. This creates the color printer driver which in turn
creates .ps files (internally converted into PDF files).
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Step 2
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Install
GhostScript
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Install Ghostscript
from here or . http://www.ghostscript.com/
During installation just use the normal
defaults. If
you selected any other non standard place for the location of Ghostscript
(meaning anything other than c:\gs\gs7.04\bin\gswin32exe)
the edit the file Locationofgs.ini
with the correct full path to gswin32.exe
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Step 3
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Copy
the VFP PDFMaker Files
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Copy
the following files from the this Zip to a working directory (some fox
project directory )
Ps2pdf.prg
Ps2pdfdir.prg
locationofgs.ini
Edit your your own .prgs with
reports changing 1 line of code and adding a new line, to something like
this.
report
form customer_report noconsole to file psfile.ps
=ps2pdf('psfile.ps')
*** or something like this
my_outputfile = 'output.ps'
report form customer_report
noconsole to file &my_outputfile
=ps2pdf(my_outputfile)
Once
ps2pdf finishes converting and saving a file by name of output.pdf or
whatever. Your .PDF is created in a sub directory of the current working
directory named pdffiles. You can then in code copy or email the files
out. By naming your reports output file name, you know the name of the
created PDF File . There is no naming the user has to do.
PS2PDFDIR.PRG
The
file ps2pdfdir.prg is a VFP sample utility program designed to show
you one way you can convert 100's of ps files in with one command.
=ps2pdfdir("c:\mypsdirectory\")
PS2PDFDIR will convert all of the ps files in that directory –
delete them, and place your newly formed pdf files in your pdffile directory
I 'borrowed' parts
of this code from the Microsoft Knowledge Base and hand converted the
freely available Unix and Linux ps2pdf command files which basically do
the same postscript to PDF conversions using GhostScript for Linux and
Unix. The Microsoft borrowed code consisted the parts referencing createprocess().
Feel free to copy or modify
any of this code. Its just my part keeping GNU alive.
Bob
Lee
WWW.1amsoftware.com
bobl@1amsoftware.com
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