Print a PDF and delete the file when printing has finished

Question

I have a Python application taht will be executed repeatedly. It saves a PDF as a file and then prints it. When printing ends it deletes the file.

My current solution (for the print and delete part) is this:

win32api.ShellExecute(0, "print", file_path, None,  ".",  0)
time.sleep(10)
os.remove(self.options.dest_name)

time.sleep(10) is a trick to give the printing process the time to run before file deletion. Without it Acrobat Reader opens (it opens anyway) and alerts that it can't find the file. This because file removal has already occured.

The question is:

1. how can I do it without this unreliable trick? The best thing would be to have an handler for the printing process and get by it an info about the printing state: I wait for it to report it's completed and I delete the file.

2. it would be even better if Acrobat Reader wouldn't open, but this is not a great problem.

EDIT: I tried switching to Foxit Reader as the default PDF reader and now it doesn't open when I don't want. ;)

OTHER POSSIBLE SOLUTION: Cylically check if the file is available (not used by another process) and when it's available again delete it. How could I do it in Python?

Answer 1

At last I've found a good solution, thanks to this answer (and also @Lennart mentioned it on a comment):

install Ghostscript

install GSview (which includes gsprint.exe)

write this code:

file_path = "C:\\temp\\test.pdf"
p = subprocess.Popen(["C:\\Ghostgum\\gsview\\gsprint.exe", "-printer", printer_name, "-colour",  file_path],
        stdout=subprocess.PIPE, stderr=subprocess.PIPE)
stdout, stderr = p.communicate() # waits for the gs process to end
os.remove(file_path) # now the file can be removed

No Acrobat windows opening, no file removed before printing... The annoyance: installing GS.

See also: gsprint reference

Answer 2

Rather than hard-coding a filename and printing that, you should use the tempfile module to create a temporary file with a unique name.

import tempfile
file_name = tempfile.NamedTemporaryFile(suffix=".pdf", delete=False)

If you want, you can run a regular tidy-up script using Window's scheduling tools to delete the files created.

Answer 3

Adobe acrobat has (or at least used to have) a parameter "/t", which made it open, print and exit. By using it, you can call acrobat reader and wait for it to exit, and then delete the file.

Untested code:

>>> import subprocess
# You will have to figure out where your Acrobate reader is located, can be found in the registry:
>>> acrobatexe = "C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 4.0\Reader\AcroRd32.exe"  
>>> subprocess.call([acrobatexe, "/t", tempfilename, "My Windows Printer Name"])
>>> os.unlink(tempfilename)

Something like that.

If you don't want acrobat to open, there are open source software that will print pdfs from the command line. You could include one with your software.

Answer 4

Why not use os.system, which will wait until the process is finished?