Using VBscript to print pdf-files

Koen, I was wondering, is the newsletter generated from Microsoft Word? If so, maybe you can perform a mail merge?

Then from the mail merged PDFs you can print or email them.

Johnny

Hi JohnnyRiv,

Thank you for your reply.

No, the newsletter is not generated from Microsoft. But it might be an option to use that function. ... Googling --- Testing --- ...

Alas, a mailmerge merges all the prints in 1 Document. So, as an example, the whole lot of 15 sets of a 3 page document is stapled together as 1 (consisting of page 1,2,3,1,2,3,etc to 15x).

Thank you for the idea, at least!

Perhaps there are other methods of print job handling? At least to print pdfs?

Thanks again, Koen

Hi Koen,

If you generate a single PDF from the merge & need to break it apart into separate PDFs you can try using the following JavaScript batch sequence to extract the sets./* Extract Pages to Folder */
var re = /.*\/|\.pdf$/ig;

// filename is the base name of the file Acrobat is working on

var filename = this.path.replace(re,"");
var pgNum = app.response({ cQuestion: 'Enter the number of pages in resulting pdf files', cTitle: 'Number of Pages'});

try {
for ( var i = 0; i < this.numPages; i+=pgNum)
this.extractPages
({
nStart: i,
nEnd: i+pgNum-1,
cPath: "/C/data/temp/"+filename+"_" + ((i/pgNum)+1) +".pdf"
});
} catch (e) { console.println("Aborted: " + e) }

Hope this is helpful.

Johnny

Hi Johnny,

I'd like to apologise to you, for not replying to you sooner. My work hours are very erratic, resulting in irregular visits to this site. Thank you for taking the time to help me with my problem.

The script looks very nifty (I'm bound to use this trick one day for some other problem) but wouldn't it result in 850 separate pdfs? (Assuming that I need to print a newsletter for 850 children?) Therefor swamping the printer-buffer --- which I intent to prevent?

And how can I print a pdf using javascript, VBscript, php, or any other scriptlanguage?

Perhaps it's best to rephrase my original problem: I need to print a pdf-file and bundle them in sets of varying numbers, depending on the classroom-size. (Classroom A has 21 children, B has 18, etc.) Is there a way to use a scriptlanguage (whichever) to print a single pdf-file (which may consist of any number of pages) a couple of specified times (stored in a csv-file) without resorting to a for-print file-next-loop? I.E.: print "file.pdf", numberOfTimes.

Thank you for any advise or help you can offer me, Koen

PS I found a link which might be interresting for people who would like to mail merge to separate files:
http://www.gmayor.com/individual_merge_letters.htm

Hi Koen,

I guess I am confused. Are you trying to print to paper or to PDF? I don't understand the bundle you speak of?

Johnny

Hi Johnny,

Oops ... I meant printing a pdf-file to paper. The bundling is done by the machine (it's an industrial copier with printing function.)

The end result will be something like:

1) script reads csv file with the number of classrooms and number of children in each classroom
2) script prints a seperate blue sheet with classroom identifier (classroom A, classroom B, etc)
3) script prints a pdf-file X times according to the amount of children in the current classroom
4) repeat steps 2+3 till all number of classrooms are done
5) printer does its job, bundling each stack of paper, so that when I return to the printer, all I need do is pick up all separate bundles and distribute them

(So in the copier I will find X stacks of paper (for each classroom a stack), each seperated by a blue sheet with the classroom identifier printed on it.)

My problem is: how do I achieve step 3, using a script-language (either javascript, vbscript, perl, php, or any other)

Kind regards, Koen