pdfif.1

.TH PDFIF "1" "April 2025" "pdfif" "User Manuals"
.SH NAME
pdfif \- Infilter for LPD, outputting PDF in user's Home
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B pdfif
[\fIOPTION\fR]...
.SH DESCRIPTION
This manual page
documents
.BR pdfif
for converting print data to PDF.
.B pdfif
is intended as infilter in
.B /etc/printcap
for lpd.
.* Thus it reads job data from stdin, and utilizes implicit command line options
.* from
.* .B lpd
.* as well as configuration statements from
.* .B /etc/pdfifrc
.* to instruct how to properly process the input to a PDF file.
.P
Input data is written to a temporary file. Next, file(1) is run, so
.B pdfif
can decide which converter program to run. This is either gs(1) or gpcl(1).
.P
Conversion is output to a second temporary file. If the job was PCL
data, pdftk(1) is applied to the output with
.B cat 1-endwest
to rotate jobs from IBM i systems correctly. Afterwards the file is
moved to the calling user's home directory if it is resolvable and writeable.
If the user cannot be found, the PDF file is moved to the home directory
of the
.B root
user.
.P
To successfully process files, the
.B file(1)
program must be installed as well as
.B gs(1)
,
.B gpcl(1)
and
.B pdftk(1) . pdfif
tries to continue processing as complete as possible if the mentioned
helper programs are not found. In general, it tries to avoid data loss
to a great extent.
.P
To achieve maximum flexibility, this program should be installed setuid root,
which might expose security issues in itself. You have been warned.
.SH OPTIONS
.TP
\fB\-c\fR
Pass control characters. Inherited from lpr. Ignored.
.TP
\fB\-w\fR
Page width in characters. Passed from pw-Parameter in /etc/printcap.
Ignored.
.TP
\fB\-l\fR
Page length in characters. Passed from pl-Parameter in /etc/printcap.
Ignored.
.TP
\fB\-i\fR
Indentation. Ignored.
.TP
\fB\-j\fR
Job- or filename.
.TP
\fB\-n\fR
Login name of the user who submitted the job (on the remote machine).
.TP
\fB\-h\fR
Host name from where the job was received.
.TP
\fB\--\fR
The remaining argument would be the lpd accounting logfile but is ignored.
.SH AUTHOR
Written by Patrik Schindler.
.SH "REPORTING BUGS"
Mail to poc@pocnet.net.
.SH COPYRIGHT
Copyright \(co 2017, 2025 Patrik Schindler
License GPLv2: GNU GPL version 2 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
.br
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.
.SH "SEE ALSO"
gs(1), gpcl(1), file(1), pdftk(1), printcap(5)