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I use a program that won't let me print to PDF, only directly to a printer. If I try to print to PDF using CutePDF for example, it prints out a blank page that says the feature is not supported. However, I need to print to PDF so I can transfer the document to another computer that has a printer connected to it.

How does the program know if I'm printing to a PDF or directly to a printer? Is there a way to spoof this so I'm allowed to print to PDF? What is technically different between the two?

wonea
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danjonweb
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  • Perhaps its CutePDF that is not supporting something. Try another free PDF printer. I recommend the MyPDF Converter. Just be careful to decline all the "Install ??? Hot Bar" requests that come with it during the installation, it can ruin your computer. – Havenard Apr 15 '13 at 00:24
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    If CutePDF can handle PostScript input, you can install a dummy PostScript printer on your computer, select it as the active printer, tell the program to print but tell it to put the output into a file, then lastly tell CutePDF to convert the output file into a PDF. – martineau Apr 15 '13 at 01:39
  • A similar idea would be to print to the Microsoft XPS Document Writer and then afterwards go into the XPS viewer and print to the CutePDF virtual printer from there. – martineau Apr 15 '13 at 01:45
  • I've now tried all of these ideas to no avail. I tried MyPDF...it knows. It knows when I'm using XPS Document Writer. It even knows when I set up a fake PostScript printer. How is this possible? – danjonweb Apr 15 '13 at 03:13
  • It seems martineau has provided the best solution. – Ramhound Apr 15 '13 at 11:12
  • Have you tried installing a dummy printer queue (of the same type as the final destination printer) and using the "print to file" function? – Harry Johnston Apr 30 '13 at 04:33

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If you look at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/dd183552%28v=vs.85%29.aspx you can see one of the fields that can be queried is the name of the printer. Possibly the program looks for a printer with the name of the popular PDF printer programs.

Is it possible to rename your PDF printer?

Zan Lynx
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