Batch Printing PDFs

Good Morning (or Day or Night), I have a network drive with 10s of thousands of PDFs. Any given week, I have to print off 500-1000 different ones, depending on the work I am doing. I know in advance, which PDFs will be needed. I would need to print these PDFs in a specific order. (they are engineering blueprints) I've attempted to use the command line and print out pdfs, to test to see if I could add them to a batch file and print them all in sequence, but every time I attempt to do so the application I am trying to use (doesnt matter which so far) opens up and prints. It would need to print and close or not open at all, as I am limited in computer resources/time. Edit Currently I've tried the following, without my expected result:

C:\Users>print /d:IP_172.31.86.2 "J:\30000's\31121-015-O.pdf" 

J:\30000's\31121-015-O.pdf is currently being printed This actually just states its being printed, I think the PRINT command is to blame. I can rerun it and get a different response:

C:\Users>print /d:IP_172.31.86.2 "J:\30000's\31121-015-O.pdf" 

Unable to initialize device IP_172.31.86.2 Which confuses me as I've verified the printer port and I'm specifying it. I've also tried the following, which does work, but it leaves the application open (cant have this):

C:\Users>"C:\Program Files (x86)\Foxit Software\Foxit Reader\FoxitReader.exe" /p "J:\30000's\31121-015-O.pdf" 

I get similar results from Adobe Reader DC. Any suggestions or sample cmd line syntax/switches that you think I might be able to learn from? I do not have a linux/unix machine to work from, just windows 7. If you have suggestions on an alternative method to printing a large number of PDFs at once, please let me know. Perhaps using something similar to kill -9 foxitreader after each /p line in the bat file? Seems excessive, but I'm open to ideas! Thank you for your time, have a good Sunday!

It's a Foxit bug. You can download an old version that will close here: cdn01.foxitsoftware.com/pub/foxit/reader/desktop/win/6.x/6.2/…

fileprocessor.info/support/articles/00007/… by using the file sequence you can either group files or select files and sort them. Maybe this will help you further.

3 Answers 3

The command in Windows for batch printing PDFs using Adobe in Windows is this:

J:\>for %f in (*.pdf) do "C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Acrobat Reader DC\Reader\AcroRd32.exe" /t %f 

Assuming IP_172.31.86.2 is the name of your printer device, you would add that after the /t switch.

For more information you can visit this question on StackOverflow.

Old question and really it is much the same as since long ago.

When you have a printer not capable of printing PDF direct, (there are those top end models that can, like Zebra PDF direct Or Apple lasers etc.) However my HP requires the vector PDF be converted to raster PDF as its an ink jet printer.

So when batch printing a graphics format like PDF in many cases you need a graphics application to render the pages binary compressed text contents into printer specific graphics (normally using for speed the Graphics Processing subsystem).

The penalty when batch processing, is start and end times around that rendering, so to speed such batches up you need, after each one that the system stays in standby for rendering the next page / file. It is for that reason that the /t switch when using Adobe to "BATCH" print keeps the print module in memory without closure.

Thus do NOT kill the task during a batch but only /t terminate the TSResident AFTER all print cycles have ended, say put a 2 minute timer before the terminate print cycle.

for %%f in (*.pdf) do "C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Acrobat Reader DC\Reader\AcroRd32.exe" /t %%f for %%f in (*.pdf) do "C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Acrobat Reader DC\Reader\AcroRd32.exe" /t %%f for %%f in (*.pdf) do "C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Acrobat Reader DC\Reader\AcroRd32.exe" /t %%f echo timeout 100 ^&^& taskkill /t /f /im acrord32.exe>KillerCount.bat start "Do not close" Killercount 

this allows you to do another task while the killer countdown is running

Waiting for 98 seconds, press a key to continue . . Waiting for 0 seconds SUCCESS: The process with PID 12940 (child process of PID 11660) has been terminated. SUCCESS: The process with PID 13112 (child process of PID 11660) has been terminated. SUCCESS: The process with PID 14084 (child process of PID 11660) has been terminated. SUCCESS: The process with PID 10696 (child process of PID 11660) has been terminated. SUCCESS: The process with PID 13600 (child process of PID 11660) has been terminated. SUCCESS: The process with PID 4652 (child process of PID 1372) has been terminated. SUCCESS: The process with PID 11660 (child process of PID 1372) has been terminated. SUCCESS: The process with PID 1372 (child process of PID 4828) has been terminated.