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Use PDF Services to print to PrintFu's printing service Apps
PrintFu is a pretty cool service that takes your large documents and, in a couple days, delivers a nicely packaged "book." I did a 244 page business plan using the service, and it cost around US $7.00. Since I read about four business plans a week, I decided to write a script to automatically print to PrintFu. Thanks to the MacNN forums for the basis of the following AppleScript).

OS X 10.2.4 and newer has a thing called PDF Services (assorted hints on PDF Services) built in. It basically allows you to take a document, turn it into a PDF, and throw it to an AppleScript, Unix script, application etc. So save the following AppleScript as "Send to PrintFu" and place it in your user's Library/PDF Services folder (create it if necessary). The next time you print anything, you will see a new drop down-button on the Print dialog box. Click it, and select "Send to PrintFu" from that drop-down. Boom, you're done.

Read the rest of the hint for the script...

on open these_items
  
  tell me to activate
  set question to "Ready to send this file to PrintFu?"
  
  display dialog question buttons {"Yes", "Cancel"} default button 1
  set userChoice to button returned of result
  if userChoice is not "Cancel" then
    repeat with aFile in these_items
      set pdfLocation to POSIX path of aFile
      set thisurl to do shell script ¬
        "curl -F \"fileUpload=@" & pdfLocation ¬
        & "\" -F \"mcAction=processRemoteFileUpload\" http://www.printfu.org/index.cfm"
      open location thisurl
    end repeat
  end if
end open

[robg adds: Sorry for the div section above, but it seemed the best way to show this without breaking it -- the long do shell script line can't be broken any more than I have done so. Just click in the scrolling box region, select all, hit copy, then paste in Script Editor.

I'd never heard of PrintFu before, so I gave it a big test -- I uploaded the Motion manual, which is 843 pages long! After waiting (quite a while) for the large PDF to upload, I got a cost back -- $25.66, including shipping. For sake of comparison, I then tried FedEx/Kinko's. First I tried their online upload tool, and after waiting again for the lengthy upload, I was told the document was too large and I'd have to call! You'd think they could check the document size first, to save the wasted upload. So I called, and got a quote of $54.86 -- over twice as expensive. Both places will print double-sided and three-hole-punched. So I'm going to try a test print with PrintFu; if I have any negative experiences, I'll update this article (it still irks me that Motion doesn't include a printed manual; you just get a printed "Guided Tour," and the PDF of the big book). Note that PrintFu is a USA-only solution at this point.

As a side note, the developer of PrintFu did all the work on a PowerBook G4, as noted in his blog...]
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Use PDF Services to print to PrintFu's printing service | 6 comments | Create New Account
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PDF page margins?
Authored by: kissedsmiley on Mar 08, '05 10:59:39PM

I love these hints. It's my homepage and it's almost too addicting... Sometimes I need to print/write large docs so I'll remember all this.

I wonder, does anyone know if we can "crop" or "zoom/then-print" pdf's? I find that there seems to be a phenomenon of getting double the page margins, ie 1inch turns into 2inches. Since I print 2per page, double sided, that really cuts down on my text per page!

I'd love to script my way out...



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Use PDF Services to print to PrintFu's printing service
Authored by: brandoncorbin on Mar 10, '05 02:50:45PM

WOW! The response that I have gotten from this single posting has been incredible! Thank you to everyone, and I hope that you enjoy your manuals! Remember, PrintFu LOVES YOU!

And yes, the entire PrintFu system was built using my beloved Powerbook, now if I could get a good price on OS X Server hosting!



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Use PDF Services to print to PrintFu's printing service
Authored by: eduo on Mar 13, '05 09:16:22AM

VERY sweet. I'm addicted to online printing services :)

I'll see if I can whip up something similar for cafepress's service:

http://www.cafepress.com/cp/info/

They can print in lots of non-paper media.

---
Eduo



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Use PDF Services to print to PrintFu's printing service
Authored by: sjk on Mar 13, '05 04:49:24PM

PrintFu is news to me too, Rob. I've wondered about (but hadn't researched) a cost-effective way to print the ~1K page Final Cut Express 2 Help document so hearing about your positive results with the like-sized Motion manual is useful, well-timed info. While I won't try the PDF Service mentioned in this hint for uploading the monster FCE PDF file (and I'll wait until after upgrading to FCE HD) it may come in handy later if PrintFu works out for me.

Btw, Apple kindly sent me a printed copy of FCE's smaller (~160 page) Getting Started guide that wasn't included with the software I purchased with my iMac G5. After that, I'm less irked at Apple for not including the larger manual since FCE was "only" $99. And another $99 for FCE HD now seems even more worthwhile with a way to affordably print the large manual.

A big thanks to Anonymous and Rob for this five-star hint!



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Use PDF Services to print to PrintFu's printing service
Authored by: robg on Mar 19, '05 09:44:47AM

As a follow-up, I received the manual (after my big print job helped find and fix a couple glitches in the system :) ), and it looks great! Nice grayscale, perfectly aligned three-hole punch.

Now I just have to read the thing!

-rob.



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Use PDF Services to print to PrintFu's printing service
Authored by: sjk on Apr 03, '05 05:43:25PM

Thanks for that followup about your success.



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