Print to PDF in Fedora

A very useful and nice thing in Apple’s OS X, is that you can print to a PDF file from any program. This can also be achieved under Windows with PDFCreator. At its core, it’s “nothing more” than a virtual printer. I use this feature a lot, so how can this be done in Fedora 8? How hard can it be?

Well, it’s easy, fire up a terminal as root and type:

  • /etc/rc.d/init.d/cups start : the CUPS (Common Unix Printing System) service needs to be started if you wish to have the pdf-printing support. I recommend that you start it automatically at boot time.
  • yum install cups-pdf : installs the pdf-printing component for CUPS

You’re done, now you can print to the CUPS/CUPS-pdf printer from almost any program, including Firefox. Neat to save web pages.

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One Response to Print to PDF in Fedora

  1. Mark Starr says:

    I don’t have a website. I do have an HP 5610v attached to a Windows XP Home system networked to my Fedora 10 box. Steven, I tried for hours last year with Fedora 9 to get the printer to print through the network. Today I found a solution on the net. It was as simple as disabling bidirectional printing in the XP system printer properties.
    Now you give me a way to virtually print to PDF. I admire you. A pan of lasagna will be consumed in your honor!

    “Hey, Garfield! How long has it been since you saw your feet?”

    “!… I have feet?!!”

    Thanks a bunch,
    Mark *

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