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When you select "Print to File" in a Gnome print dialog (not cups-pdf):

print-to-file

... what is the actual command that gets executed? (I'm interested in the postscript variant, as on the image)

On the other hand - maybe there isn't a command call; maybe it is gtk_print_operation_set_export_filename from The new Gtk+ Printing API?

In any case - is there a way for me to utilize this particular code from the command line (not pdf2ps and the like)? Say, by using lpr to "print to file" to a postscript file - as if I was using the dialog above?

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AFAIK, this is a feature of the subsystem used by some GNOME and GTK+ applications to print stuff (some of these use Cairo). lpr interacts with cups directly, the print to file option completely bypasses the printing server. it probably doesn't call a command, it just invokes the cairo renderering function in a different way so it generates pdf, postscript or svg output to a file. – njsg Jun 7 '12 at 21:27
Ah, so its the cairo backend there! Any ideas if a comparable command line is available, that can invoke this rendering function in the same way as the print dialog does? Many thanks for the comment, @njsg - cheers! – sdaau Jun 7 '12 at 22:39
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There may be some cairo command line tool (I really don't know), but I guess it's a bit tricky, as many applications use cairo to print their own documents, and that application is the one which is able to understand the file format. Cairo won't be able to read random file formats. The closest you can get is to check if the program with the dialog has some commandline option to print a file without opening the GUI. – njsg Jun 7 '12 at 23:15
Thanks for explaining that @njsg - the above screenshot was taken from the evince print dialog; unfortunately, I cannot see any command line switches by evince that would do something like this.. Cheers! – sdaau Jun 7 '12 at 23:18
This is just an UI convention, each program can in principle do what they wish when "Print to file" is selected. – vonbrand Jan 15 at 15:18

1 Answer

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lpr -P "Print_to_PDF" file_to_print

To get the list of currently configured printers, run lpstat -p -d.

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