Printing a PDF document using Java 1.4 Printing API

Question

Hi,
When I tried to print a PDF document using JAVA 1.4 Printing API, I got the following exception.
Exception in thread "main" sun.print.PrintJobFlavorException: invalid flavor
at sun.print.Win32PrintJob.print(Win32PrintJob.java:290)
at Printing.main(Printing.java:40)
I am able to print the same PDF document using Acrobat reader.
Is PDF format not supported in JAVA 1.4 printing API? or is something wrong in my code?
here is the sample JAVA program that I was using
import javax.print.*;
import javax.print.attribute.*;
import java.io.*;
public class Printing {
public static void main(String args[]) throws Exception {
String filename = args[0];
PrintRequestAttributeSet pras =
new HashPrintRequestAttributeSet();
DocFlavor flavor = DocFlavor.INPUT_STREAM.PDF;
PrintService defaultService =
PrintServiceLookup.lookupDefaultPrintService();
DocPrintJob job = defaultService.createPrintJob();
FileInputStream fis = new FileInputStream(filename);
DocAttributeSet das = new HashDocAttributeSet();
Doc doc = new SimpleDoc(fis, flavor, das);
job.print(doc, pras);
Thread.sleep(10000);
System.exit(0);
Thank you
Sumana

Answer 1

Here's a pure Java solution (that works!):
http://www.mycgiserver.com/~zhouwu/pdf/readme.html
The caveats are:
- prints only to the default printer
- requires a properties file located in the home directory
my workaround for the last:
     * Print a PDF file to the default printer (might consume lots of memory!).
     * <p>
     * <b>Required:</b>
     * <ul>
     * <li>a file "acrobat.properties" needs to be in the working directory. The content is:
<table align="center" bgcolor="#E0E0E0" border=1 cellpadding="10" cellspacing="0"><tr><td><pre style="margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
#com.adobe.acrobat.Viewer Properties
#Wed Oct 29 20:34:05 PST 2003
com.adobe.acrobat.AcceptedLicAgreement=true
com.adobe.acrobat.Fax_Fine_Mode=true
com.adobe.acrobat.Find\:FindAll=false
com.adobe.acrobat.Find\:FindBackwards=false
com.adobe.acrobat.Find\:FindWholeWord=false
com.adobe.acrobat.Find\:MatchCase=false
com.adobe.acrobat.Open_Dialog_Directory=C\:\\temp\\
com.adobe.acrobat.Open_Dialog_File=itext.pdf
com.adobe.acrobat.Print_Method_Known=true
com.adobe.acrobat.Shrink_To_Fit=false
com.adobe.acrobat.SitePreferencesURL=file\://localhost/C\:/pdf/acrobat-site.properties
com.adobe.acrobat.Use_Print_Server=false
com.adobe.acrobat.util.fontDirectories=C\:\\Winnt\\Fonts
com.adobe.acrobat.util.fontIgnoreExtensions=.fon;.pfm;.ini;.lst;.txt;.doc;.ttmap;.z;.enc;.dir;.afm;.f3b;.pfa;.spd;.ps;.bepf;.map;.alias;.scale;.all;.upr
</pre></td></tr></table>
     * <li>The JAR files PDFPrinter.jar, acrobat.jar and MRJToolkitStubs.zip in the CLASSPATH.
     * </ul>
     * <p>
     * Note: the file "acrobat.properties" is expected to be in the user's home directory. As this is not always feasible,
     * the system property "user.home" is mapped to "user.dir" for the time of execution.
     * @param fileName Name of PDF file to print.
     * @throws Exception on error.
     * @see <a href="http://www.mycgiserver.com/~zhouwu/pdf/readme.html">PDF Server (Silent) Printing</a>
    public void printPDF(String fileName) throws Exception {
        String oldHome = System.getProperty("user.home");
        System.setProperty("user.home", System.getProperty("user.dir"));
        PDFPrinter vi = new PDFPrinter();
        vi.activate();
        vi.setDocumentInputStream(new FileInputStream(fileName));
        vi.printAll();
        System.setProperty("user.home", oldHome);
    }//printPDF()I just need the following additional files in my CLASSPATH: PDFPrinter.jar, acrobat.jar and MRJToolkitStubs.zip. Despite the note at the site above that "printing quality is not very good", i can't agree: the print quality is quite good. Not perfect, but acceptable for most uses.
(Tested on Windows 2000 SP4, J2SE 1.4.2_03, hp laserjet 2300dn)