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Is there a way to install a printer that prints to pdf?

There's a lot of discussions about this in the web foruns, but none seens to work.

The Student
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    A more up to date answer can be found [here](https://askubuntu.com/questions/601836/cups-pdf-prints-a-blank-page/639883#639883) – fbicknel May 08 '18 at 18:50

3 Answers3

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If you've CUPS installed, you can easily add a "PDF Printer" by installing the cups-pdf package:

sudo apt-get install cups-pdf

or since Ubuntu 16.04

sudo apt-get install printer-driver-cups-pdf

The pdf printer provided by that package will "print" the resulting PDFs into the /home/[user]/PDF directory.

Zanna
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tohuwawohu
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    Since Ubuntu 16.04, the package is called `printer-driver-cups-pdf`. – sergej Jul 05 '17 at 17:18
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    I get blank output files – Hamman Samuel Dec 11 '17 at 20:38
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    It can take a minute or so to complete "printing." So if you're getting blank pages or a "corrupted pdf," just give it a few minutes and check back later. – Freedom_Ben May 08 '18 at 03:09
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    since Ubuntu 18.04 the cups-pdf and its successor printer-driver-cups-pdf do not work any more. The "printer" disappears. Any idea how to print PDF from wine based apps?? – opinion_no9 Nov 05 '18 at 23:01
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    Note that when using `sudo apt install cups-pdf` at least, the new "printer" that shows up in your print menu is called simply `PDF`, and when you select this printer and click the "Print" button, it then outputs the generated PDFs into this folder: `~/PDF`, with a file name such as `job_217-untitled_document.pdf`. It took me a while to find them, as it looked like nothing was happening, and no dialog box came up (in typical Linux fashion: not very user-friendly!) – Gabriel Staples Oct 14 '19 at 22:22
  • @opinion_no9: see https://askubuntu.com/questions/1090245/cups-pdf-disappeared-with-update-to-u-18-04 for 18.04 fix. – gerardw Feb 20 '20 at 15:31
  • Ran `sudo apt install cups-pdf` in Ubuntu 21.04. `apt` automatically detects this: `Note, selecting 'printer-driver-cups-pdf' instead of 'cups-pdf'` and installs `printer-driver-cups-pdf` correctly. – ATutorMe Jul 19 '21 at 01:34
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Ubuntu ships with this functionality. Try opening gedit or another GUI text editor and clicking the print button:

enter image description here

When the Print dialog appears, select the "Print to File" printer and select a location for the PDF. After clicking Print, you should end up with a PDF file in that location containing an identical copy of what would have printed on a sheet of paper.

enter image description here

karel
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Nathan Osman
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Whenever you print , there is already an option for "print to file". I hope you are talking about that.. if not then please elaborate your question

rrj
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    Yes, depending on the software you are using there's already this option. But for Astah UML, for example, there isn't. I would like something like the "print2pdf" software (this one, for Windows). – The Student Nov 22 '11 at 19:28
  • Yes, this is independent from "print to file". apt-get install cups-pdf is back for a while. In Ubuntu 19 and 20 I could use it again. Works fine. mostly. Acts like a printer (same like the Redmond workaround). – opinion_no9 Feb 21 '20 at 22:22