Command line printing with Adobe Acrobat in Windows

[Chaotic42]

All,

I'm trying to find a way to print a large number of PDF files (some will be printed more than once) from the command line in Windows 2000 using Adobe Acrobat Reader 6.

From what I've been able to gather, there used to be a /t switch which allowed this, but it seems to have been broken in version 5.

The closest that I've been able to get is to have something like this:

acrord32.exe /s /p file.pdf

But that only brings a print dialog. I need it to print all of these things silently. I thought that echo-ing to the above command might "press the OK button" in the application, but it just seems to do nothing. Here's what I tried incase I lost you:

echo > acrord32.exe /s /p file.pdf

Without installing any other software (if it can be helped), can anyone tell me a good way to get this done? I don't care if it's a lot of work, it's more work to have someone babysit all of these reports everyday.

Thanks in advance,
Chaotic42

 

[Chaotic42]

Okay, after an exhaustive search, I found what I was looking for.... At least it works with Acrobat 7. We'll see about 6 tomorrow.

In case any of you time travellers from the future happen upon this thread, desperate for an answer... Too bad.

I'm sure it's not anything like:

acrord32.exe /p /h C:\Absolute\File\Path.pdf

So don't bother trying it.

 

[Chaotic42]

Hmm... This does work, but now I need a way to shut down acrobat from the command line.

Any ideas?

 

[GeekDrew]

I'm not sure if taskkill came with Windows 2000 or not -- I know that it did with Windows XP.

If not, look at http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/PsKill.html

 

[Chaotic42]

No, it doesn't seem to have pskill on it. I can't really put software on the computer because it is a production machine. Is there any kind of obsure piping that I could use? Maybe pipe "Alt+F4" to it in a batch file?

 

[Thyme]

Can you wrap it in a script and use that to control the processes?

 

[Chaotic42]

Originally posted by: Thyme
Can you wrap it in a script and use that to control the processes?

It would have to be a batch script and that's what I'd like some guidance on.

Unless anyone here knows how to have Crystal Reports generate and print from the command line...

 

[Chaotic42]

Here's an "at work on Saturday" bump.

 

[GeekDrew]

I discovered about two days ago that I need to do the same thing.

I've got the spawn AcroRead and print thing down... now, just killing it. I haven't come up with any good solution. I have pskill, but I'm hesitant to use it, because of race conditions.

I've been unable to find a command reference for AcroRead... do you have one? I'm assuming there isn't an "exit on complete" feature...

 

[Chaotic42]

Originally posted by: GeekDrew
I discovered about two days ago that I need to do the same thing.

I've got the spawn AcroRead and print thing down... now, just killing it. I haven't come up with any good solution. I have pskill, but I'm hesitant to use it, because of race conditions.

I've been unable to find a command reference for AcroRead... do you have one? I'm assuming there isn't an "exit on complete" feature...

All I can find is "Acrobat doesn't support the command line". I'd like to take a sock full of quarters to Adobe's headquarters.