Printing PDFs

"Printing" PDFs can mean different things to different people:

sending PDFs to a printing device programmatically (to be printed on paper); or converting to PostScript; or
"printing to PDF", or converting from a file format to PDF by 'printing' to it; or
rasterizing inbound PDFs with precise control for driver-level interaction in prepress and or print workflow environments.

We have different toolkits to meet each of these requirements.

Printing existing PDF files on a target printing device

If you're looking to automate the printing of existing PDFs to a printing device, consider the Adobe PDF Library API. Adobe PDF Library includes printing APIs which give you controls to:

specify PostScript level (when outputting to PostScript)
embed or not embed fonts
print using overprint preview or not
process transparencies using AGM, the same engine used in the Acrobat family of products
print optional content groups (layers) and annotations
scale pages, including shrink-to-fit
print via drawing directly to device context, giving you greater interactive control over the printing process

Learn more about the Adobe PDF Library SDK.

Printing to PostScript

The Adobe PDF Library SDK can be used to programmatically convert PDFs to PostScript via the PDFLPrintDoc() API.

Learn more about the Adobe PDF Library SDK.

Printing to PDFs, or creating PDFs

If you're looking to convert from one file format to PDF, you might consider Adobe PDF JobReady. This toolkit consists of client-side "PDF printer driver" used to create and submit a PDF to a server-based receving component. Once installed, the client-side driver will appear as a printer to end-users, and when files are printed to it, secure, reliable PDFs are created. This driver is accessible to any application that can print.

PDF JobReady's most typical use is to facilitate print job submission to online "quick printers". It is also used by larger commercial printers and internal IT organizations for internal print job submission and tracking.

Learn more about Adobe PDF JobReady.

RIPing PDFs to raster for print workflows

If you're looking for a native PDF RIP, consider Adobe's own Adobe PDF Print Engine (APPE). APPE is the RIP used in print solutions such as Trueflow from SCREEN, NexStation VSystem from Kodak Nexpress, and :ApogeeX from Agfa, and is available to software developers exclusively through Datalogics. APPE features include:

High speed, high resolution printing with support for up to 16-bit output
Multi-threaded rendering to take full advantage of today's multicore systems
Color management using industry standard ICC profiles including the ability to modify document profiles at the object level
Advanced spot color controls to allow remapping, overprint emulation and device independent alternative color specification
In-RIP trapping to work intelligently with transparency and color management

Learn more about the Adobe PDF Print Engine.