Bullzip Knowledge Base

With the PDF printer, you can send the newly created PDF to a real printer after the PDF is saved. This enables you to implement a workflow where you create a PDF archive of all your print jobs.

This post will show you how to create such an archive printer as a separate printer on your system.

First, you download the latest PDF printer and install it from a command line with the following command line switches:

Setup_BullzipPDFPrinter_11_1_0_2600_PRO_EXP.exe /SILENT /PRINTERNAME=”Archive PDF Printer”

This will install a new virtual PDF printer on your computer. The new printer is named “Archive PDF Printer”. After the installation has completed, you can use this printer as a normal PDF printer.

We need to configure it to send all print jobs to a PDF archive folder and to another real printer. This is done with the global.ini file in this location:

C:\ProgramData\PDF Writer\Archive PDF Printer\global.ini

Open the global.ini in a text editor and add the following lines:

[PDF Printer]
 Output=C:\Archive\<username> - <date> <time> - <guid>.pdf
 ShowSettings=never
 ShowSaveAS=never
 ShowProgress=no
 ShowProgressFinished=no
 ShowPDF=no
 ConfirmOverwrite=no
 PrintToPrinter=yes
 PrinterName=Microsoft XPS Document Writer
 PrinterSelection=Specific

The output setting specifies the name of the saved PDF document. The output name uses macro names that will be substituted by real information at run time. You can see a complete list of macros here:

Click here to see all the Macro tags

All the show settings control the dialog. The settings used here will hide the printing dialog and automatically save the PDF.

The printer settings control how the PDF document is printed to a normal printer.

You can read about more show and printer settings here:

Click to see a complete list of PDF printer settings

Please note that you need the expert edition to send the document to a normal printer.

You can use the PDF Printer to split a PDF into multiple files. Each file will have one page from the original PDF.

It is as simple as adding the <pageno> macro name to the output file name. Here is an example:

Using the file name “test – <pageno>.pdf” will result in files named “test – 1.pdf” for the first page and so on.

Additional formatting can be added to the page no. If you write <pageno,3> the number will be zero padded to the length of 3 characters. The padding character can be specified as an additional parameter such as <pageno,3,->. This will create a page number like –1, –2, etc.

See the documentation about macros for more information.

This post contains a VBA macro that will set the output file name to a cleaned version of the subject. The selected mail item is then printed.

Note that Outlook remembers the last printer used. Therefore you have to use the PDF printer before you run this macro. Otherwise, Outlook will just print to another printer.

Option Explicit

Public Sub PrintPdf()
  Dim mi As MailItem
  Dim o
  Dim p As Integer
  Dim subj As String
  Dim illegalchars As String
  Dim i As Integer
  Dim output As String
  Dim settings As Object
  
  For Each o In Application.ActiveExplorer.Selection
    If TypeName(o) = "MailItem" Then
       Set mi = o
       subj = mi.Subject
   
       Rem -- Clean reply and forward prefixes
      Do
         p = InStr(1, Left(subj, 4), ":")
         subj = Trim(Mid(subj, p + 1))
       Loop While p > 0
    
     Rem -- Remove illegeal file  name characters
     illegalchars = "<>:""/\|?*" 
     For i = 1 To Len(illegalchars)
       subj = Replace(subj, Mid(illegalchars, i, 1), "_")
      Next
    
      Rem -- Remove double underscores
      Do
        p = InStr(1, subj, "__")
        subj = Replace(subj, "__", "_")
      Loop While p > 0
    
      Rem -- Create the COM settings object to control the printer.
      output = "C:\Temp\" & subj & ".pdf"
      Set settings = CreateObject("bullzip.PdfSettings")
      settings.SetValue "Output", output
      settings.SetValue "RememberLastFolderName", "no"
    
      Rem -- Write settings to the runonce.ini.
      settings.WriteSettings True
    
      Rem -- Print the object
      Debug.Print "Printing: " & subj
      mi.PrintOut
    End If
    Exit For
  Next
End Sub

When you have created the macro, you can customize your ribbon and give it an icon.