This is a topic that resurfaces periodically (see
Printing PDF files (UNIX to PC) ) but it has been a couple of years and I've just had another inquiry so I thought I'd check to see what the latest thinking was. The objective: to take an existing PDF file and send it to a laser printer from within an A-Shell session running under Linux.

In the post referenced above, Ken indicated he had worked out a solution using Ghostscript.

A quick web search today turns up indications that the OpenPrinting project has completed implementation of a set of CUPS print filters that can handle PDF directly as input.

Has anybody else tried Ken's recipe or the OpenPrinting/CUPS scheme, or come up with any other method? Linux version required? Happy with it? Advice?

We use the OpenPrinting/CUPS scheme at our largest customer's site.

We're currently running CentOS 5 64bit

It works very well. They require multiple copies of invoices to be printed with different text across the bottom (.i.e. "Shipping Copy", "AR Copy", "Customer Copy"). This used to be handled by a macro in the printer which did a background merge for each copy automatically, but they needed to upgrade to faster printers and the macro capability doesn't really exist anymore. So, we now turn the print file into a PDF using a complex scripting process of Enscript, ps2pdf, and PDFTK. All of this to say they print hundreds to thousands of invoices directly from PDF files a day without issue.

The method I have been using for years skirts the issue. But it is relatively simple, quite reliable, and I haven't heard any complaints about it. I use a HOSTEX call to copy the Linux PDF file to a Samba directory (which points to a shared folder on the user's network). That file has a *.PDF extension. I then use a PRINT statement to employ AlphaLAN's "invoke by file association" feature. That opens the file using Acrobat or Acrobat Reader and allows the user to preview it and/or save it before sending that file (or a portion of it) to any network printer.