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CMSC421
Principles of Operating Systems |
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Creating PDF files in Unix and Windows Environments
Unix/Linux Environments
- pdftex/pdflatex
You can use the unix commands pdftex and pdflatex to create PDF files
from TeX documents.
pdftex filename.tex filename.pdf
or
pdflatex filename.tex filename.pdf
Check the man pages for more options or pdftex support:
http://www.tug.org/applications/pdftex/
- ps2pdf
You can convert PostScript output of a TeX file to PDF format.
For this, first you need to compile your TeX file with LaTeX and get the PS output.
latex filename.tex
dvips filename.dvi -o filename.ps
To convert postScript to PDF you need to do:
ps2pdf filename.ps
The command, ps2pdf is part of Ghostscript program.
For more about the options for ps2pdf check out
http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/doc/AFPL/6.50/Ps2pdf.htm
- enscript and a2ps
You can use the unix commands enscript or a2ps to convert your text files to
postscript. For this you need to have access to a PostScript printer.
Having that, you need to do:
enscript filename.txt -o filename.ps
or
a2ps filename.txt -o filename.ps
and then
ps2pdf filename.ps
- PStill
PStill can convert PS/EPS/TIFF/JPEG files to PDF. It can also be used
as Windows PDF printer, producing PDF directly from any application. If
you're going to use PStill on Linux for personal or educational reasons
the program is free. You can download it from http://www.wizards.de/~frank/pstill.html#DLPSTILL
- MAC OS X On Apple MAC OS X machines, printing to PDF is
part of the "Print" options - look for "Save as PDF" or similar item
when you select "File -> Print". Apple MACs are available in OIT's
labs.
- StarOffice and OpenOffice
StarOffice is a popular office suite for Linux and UNIX (there's also a
Windows version). StarOffice 6.0 and it's Open Source counterpart
OpenOffice can actually print directly to PDF. Checkout the following
links for further details: http://www.openoffice.org/ and
http://wwws.sun.com/software/star/staroffice/.
Windows Environments
The easiest way to create a PDF file in Windows, is to install a
PostScript printer on your machine and print any document
to a file using this virtual printer.
You can download PS printer drivers from:
http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/product.jsp?product=44&platform=Windows
Then you can convert the output (PostScript) file to PDF using the ps2pdf
command in a Unix or Linux environment, or use one of the options below.
- Ghostscript
Ghostscript is an interpreter for the PostScript language and for PDF, and
related software and documentation. Checkout
http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/ for more details.
- Miktex
Includes lots of great TeX utilities including pdftex and pdflatex which can be
used at the DOS command prompt. You can download this free software from
http://www.miktex.org/.
- PDF995 and Omniformat Freeware
You can create PDF files with PDF995
(http://www.pdf995.com/download.html).
Once you install the PDF995 Printer Driver, you can print your files using the
PDF995 printer and have the output in PDF format.
For converting your existing files to PDF you can download and use the free software
(Omniformat) at this link:
http://www.omniformat.com/download.html.
- Cygwin
Cygwin is a Unix-like environment for Windows,
that allows you to use lots of Unix software in a Windows environemnt.
Checkout
www.cygwin.com for details and download.
- Adobe Acrobat Distiller
Acrobat Distiller (not free, unlike Acrobat Reader) converts documents to PDF.
You can download it from:
http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/main.html