Set up a PDF Printer in your Linux box

Do you wish to take a pdf copy of the pages or convert a document into a .pdf file? or you do not have a printer and wish to print a web-page?

You can install a PDf printer in your linux machine, so that all you need (to convert a document into a pdf file) is to print the document and choose your PDF printer instead of your usual printer.

By default, CUPS-PDF is not installed, so grab it by using

$ sudo apt-get install cups-pdf

You should then be able to add a fake printer that will convert print jobs to PDF files.

Go to System -> Administration -> Printing to bring up the Printer configuration dialog. Select New Printer from the toolbar, and walk through the New Printer Wizard. You can give the printer pretty much any name you want. PDF seems like a logical choice. The Description and Location fields are optional.

On the next screen, when asked to select a connection, choose Virtual Printer, and leave the device URI as it is: cups-pdf:/. Next, on the screen where you can select a Printer from the database, choose Generic. On the next screen, choose PostScript as the Model and as the driver for the printer. Then you'll see a screen that says "Going to create a new printer PDF at cups-pdf:/." Click Apply and you should have a virtual PDF printer.

Now you should be able to create PDF files from most Linux apps by sending your print jobs to the PDF printer. When you send jobs to the printer, they'll be saved to a directory under your home directory that's named after the virtual printer -- so if you choose PDF as the name of your virtual printer, then the jobs will be sent to /home/yourusername/PDF.

Happy printing :)