We’re looking at moving our pdf production server-side, due to some regulations that are coming into effect later this year. Our current software relies on being installed on a windows pc, and is distributed to each client machine. They have a linux server version, but the price is a little high, so we’re looking into alternatives.

Am I right in assuming that there isn’t a server-side option for PDFX? If so, does anyone have any recommendations for pdf generation server-side? I’ve looked into a few, but thought I’d see if anyone had any recommendations.

We have two different Linux server-side PDF generation methods

1. For creating PDF files from old A-Shell generated reports, so they look identical as if they were printed. We us a combination of encscript, ghostscript, and pdftk command line tools.

Note, PDFTK isn't directly available in CentOS 7 due to GPL (I think) licensing issues. In this case, we built a public docker image (ddsdocker/pdftk) to make it available in CentOS 7.

2. New PDF reports that need a high level of customization. For this we use a python package called `reportlab`. This natively generates PDF files on the server, but it doesn't offer conversion to other formats.

This also raises the problem of how to directly spool a PDF in Windows via ATE/A-Shell. I know there's a thread about this I can't find right now. We've been considering installing a PortableApp version of Foxit Reader under the ATE/A-Shell director, and then use SHELLEX with it. Foxit is the only Windows program I know of with a command line direct spool to a printer option.

Since our native report and document format is PCL, we have been using PCL2PDF for many years. It's not very fancy, but it's relatively inexpensive and easy to use. It resides solely on a Linux Server. When we convert a PCL file to PDF, we transfer to the client using our terminal emulator's (AlphaLAN) built-in commands. The only downside to this solution is its speed. It can take 30 seconds to convert a small file; much longer if that file is large (over 100 pages). Here's a link: http://www.visual.co.uk/

A couple more suggestions:

For a Windows-side PDF viewer with a command line print capability, another possibility is the PDF-XChange Editor . The licensing options are a bit confusing but I believe you can access the basic features, including print-from-PDF, in the free version.

As for server-side PDF generation, I don't think you are using A-Shell //GDI printing directives, so you could in theory use any Linux PDF generation solution. But for the benefit of other readers who may be dependent on those directives, there is currently little choice but to somehow route them through A-Shell/Windows or ATE in order to be processed. That's easy in the ATE environment (just use the AUXLOC: printer device). Otherwise what some have resorted to is to place an installation of AshLPD (an A-Shell/Windows-based application that acts as a network print server) somewhere on the network and print to it as you would a network-connected printer. It can then be configured to do whatever you like with the PDF results, including printing, archiving, or even transferring back to the Linux server. It's a bit like going 3 sides around the block, but the upside is that ultimately the print "server" is an A-ShellBASIC application, so you can customize it as you like.

Thanks for the feedback! We ended up managing to push the price down on our preferred solution to a fraction of what they were asking, so it's ended up not being an issue. I'll keep this thread in mind in case any further issues occur though, always nice to have a fall back.