PDFalerts

The ASUS Eee PC comes with either Xandros or Windows XP installed by default. Since there is a ton of different ways to create PDFs on Windows XP (just search Google for ‘create pdfs free xp’), this post will just focus on creating PDFs on Xandros.

In this tutorial we are going to use CUPS-PDF to add print to PDF functionality in Xandros on the Eee PC in Easy Mode.

Creating PDFs on the Eee PC (Easy Mode)

1. The first thing you’ll need to do is open the Terminal Window. You can do this by pressing Ctrl, Alt and T at the same time or by clicking on the Work tab, starting the File Manager, clicking on the Tools menu and then clicking on Open Console Window.
2. Now type in the following line and press Enter:

sudo apt-get install cups-pdf

Note: depending on the state of Xandros on you machine you may need to add another repository directly to the sources.list file. To do that, type the following command into the terminal window:

sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list

Then add this line to the end of the sources.list file:

deb http://http.us.debian.org/debian stable main

Then save your changes by pressing Ctrl and O, then pressing Enter and then pressing Ctrl and X to close the sources.list file and return to the normal terminal window.

If you run into further trouble, try updating your local repository with Debian’s sources and then repeat step 2. You can sync the repositories by running:

apt-get update

3. CUPS-PDF is now installed, but it won’t show up in your list of available printers until you have configured it. To configure CUPS-PDF follow these steps:

a) Open Firefox and type http://localhost:631/ into the location bar and hit Enter.

b) Select Add Printer from the web interface for CUPS-PDF.

c) Add New Printer: Enter in a Name, Location and Description for your virtual PDF printer. You can enter anything here, it’s purely for your benefit. For simplicities sake I gave my virtual PDF printer the name ‘cups-pdf’ and didn’t bother with location or description, as I’m the only one using it. Click Continue.

d) Device for cups-pdf: Select Virtual Printer (PDF Printer) from the drop-down list. Click Continue.

e) Make/Manufacturer for cups-pdf: Select Postscript from the drop-down list. Click Continue.

f) Model/Driver for cups-pdf: You’ll only have one option (on my machine it’s Generic postscript color printer rev4 (en)) to select, so select it and then click Add Printer.

Note: in the final step in the configuration after you click on “Add Printer” you may get a pop-up Authorization Request window asking you for a username and password for “CUPS” at http://localhost:631/. Try entering “root” as your username and then your machines password to get passed this authorization request. That worked for me.

And that’s it, you should now have the ability to create PDFs on your Eee PC.

A final tip: when you create your first PDF using CUPS-PDF a folder called PDF is automatically created in the My Home directory. Whenever you create a PDF using CUPS-PDF it will be placed in here. You can navigate to this folder by clicking on the Work tab, then clicking on File Manager and then looking for the PDF folder under My Home.

• Foxit Software have released a minor update to Foxit PDF Reader. It is not clear yet whether or this update fixes the security issue discovered by Secunia earlier this week.
• Essential Keystrokes covers PDF Basics and Essential Tools in this post. Includes tips for finding an online PDF conversion service, or a PDF conversion application for the desktop.
• A comprehensive list of PDF Editing & Creation: 50+ open source/free alternatives to Adobe Acrobat.

I just stumbled across PDFoo.com. They have come up with the interesting idea of providing an indexed list of PDF files that are available on websites across the Internet. While I suppose you could achieve the same result using Googles advanced search, PDFoo makes it super easy. They also provide some intelligent details such as most frequently and most recently downloaded files.

PDFoo.com: Your free search PDF files …

Ever since the PDF format came into existence people have extolled it’s potential as an alternative to paper documents. But we don’t live in a completely electronic world, so from time to time, we’re forced to print our PDF documents to paper. Upto this point there hasn’t really been a product that focuses on reducing potential waste in PDF documents that could be printed to paper. This is where GreenPrint comes in.

From printgreener.com:

GreenPrint eliminates wasteful pages in any printout automatically, saving you time and money, and maybe more importantly, saving trees, reducing greenhouse gasses, and decreasing waste.

GreenPrint’s patent-pending technology does this by analyzing each page of every document sent to the printer and looking for typical waste characteristics (like that last page with just a URL, banner ad, logo, or legal jargon).

You can view a video tutorial of GreenPrint here.

It’s certainly an innovative, and timely, marketing angle, and most importantly, it appears to work pretty well too.

While usually the focus is on converting various different file formats to PDF, occasionally you may need to convert PDF documents to some other format. This Acrobat for Legal Professionals blog post provides details (and a script to automate the process) on how to convert PDFs to text files and TIFF files.

Generating TIFF and Text files from PDF for Concordance and Summation

From PR-CANADA.net:

Baltsoft has released Free PDF Converter - http://www.freepdfconvert.com - an affordable online conversion site that lets business people easily convert Microsoft Office documents, images, web pages, and vector graphics files to PDF documents. Without having to purchase expensive conversion software, or spend days learning to run a complicated desktop conversion application, PDF Converter users can quickly convert a large number of files, effortlessly.

If you’re looking for a free online PDF converter check out Free PDF Converter. Not only can you convert various types of documents to PDF, but you can also convert PDFs to Word documents and Excel spreadsheets. I used the service to convert a simple Word document to PDF and it all went pretty smoothly. I was able to download my PDF directly from the website and I also had the option of receiving the converted PDF by email.

Check out this video demo of viewing ebooks (in PDF format) on the iPhone. It looks pretty cool.

I’ve just finished upgrading to Gutsy Gibbon, the latest release of Ubuntu, and I am very happy to find that a PDF printer driver is now installed by default. Previously I’ve covered some PDF creators that are available for Linux operating systems and have generally found that they are lacking in both functionality and numbers (i.e. there isn’t that many of them). Hopefully now that the PDF printer is a more integrated part of Ubuntu, it will get more attention feature wise.

The PDF printer in Gutsy Gibbon is an updated version of CUPS-PDF.

• Adobe PDF security flaw: This weeks PDF related headlines have been dominated by a recently uncovered vulnerability in Adobe Reader and Acrobat. The vulnerability was discovered by Petko Petkov, a security researcher, who seems to have a knack for discovering high profile flaws. In response, Adobe Systems have released a security advisory that provides details on how users can hack their registry to protect themselves. The vulnerability only affects machines that are using the combination of Windows XP and Internet Explorer 7. Adobe will release a patch before the end of the month that fixes this security hole.
• Designing PDF forms with OpenOffice: PDF expert and author, Ted Padova, takes a look at the the PDF forms functionality in OpenOffice over at his Acrobat Users blog.
• List PDF Bookmarks with a Free Script: Acrobat for Legal Professionals has a useful post on how to easily create a list of all bookmarks in a document.
• Change PDF Versions using Acrobat: Sometimes when you submit PDF documents you need to use a specific PDF version. This article provides you with tips on how to check what version of the PDF specification a document is using and then change it.