Automatic Hardcopy of every generated PDF

In enterprise environments document hardcopies and PDF documents go hand in hand. Hardcopies of every generated PDF might be needed for paper files or a PDF document for electronic archiving might be required for every document printed. 

An easy solution is the Aloaha PDF Suite. Rather then sharing the physical printer to the network you share the Wrocklage PDF Printer to the network. Aloaha will convert every print to PDF and automatic print it to a physical printer connected. 


The setup is pretty much straight forward. Log on to the console of your server and install the Aloaha PDF Suite. All you need to configure is to share the Wrocklage PDF Printer to your network, re-configure Aloaha to run as a service and enable Aloaha to generate a Hardcopy of every PDF. Below you will find a step by step guide on how to accomplish this. 

Re-configure the Aloaha PDF Suite to run as a service

1) Remove the Aloaha shortcut from the autostart group of the startmenu.

2) Right click on the Aloaha systray icon and choose exit.

3) Open the service control manager and configure the PDF Suite Service to automatic startup

Choose the physical hardcopy printer and enable autoprint

1) Start PMonConfig.exe from the Aloaha PDF Suite Directory.
     Usually that is c:\program files\wrocklage\PMonConfig.exe

2) Choose the Wrocklage PDF Printer in the first drop down menu

3) Choose your hardcopy printer in the second drop down menu

4) Enable "Print Hardcopy to printer above"

Please refer also to the screenshot below

Start Aloaha and verify settings

1) Open the services control manager and start the PDF Suite service

2) Right click on the Aloaha Tray Icon and choose settings.

3) Make sure you find your hardcopy printer in the "Print Settings" tab choosen

4) Define PDF save location in  the "Save" Tab

5) Click OK

6) Right Click on the Tray Icon and make sure there is NO checkbox besides the Interactive option

ATTENTION: The Tray icon does only show if you are logged on to the machine console. If you need to connect via Terminal Services make sure to call the client with the parameter /console

Hardcopy without Letterhead

In some cases it might be required that the hardcopy is being done before the PDF Letterhead is rendered to the document. For example when the hardcopy is done to company paper.

Should you require heardcopies without letterhead just create a registry key:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Aloaha\pdf\printer]
"HardCopyPrinter"="HP LaserJet P1005"

HardCopyPrinter defines the printer to be used! The keys below will then created automatically.

Obviously you need to replace “HP LaserJet P1005” with your printer name!

"HardCopyPaperSize"=dword:00000009
"HardCopyOrientation"=dword:00000000
"HardCopyCollate"=dword:00000000
"HardCopyDuplex"=dword:00000000
"HardCopyColor"=dword:00000001
"HardCopyQuality"=dword:00000002

The values for HardCopyPaperSize you get from:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/dd319099(v=vs.85).aspx

Additional Tipps and Tricks

Instead of useing the localsystem account to run Aloaha it is adviced to dedicate Aloaha its own user. Some settings are saved user based and to change them you need to log on as that user.

In case you need to configure some advanced settings such as automatic emailing of PDF documents, sorting PDF documents by user or enabling script engine it is adviced to run Aloaha with a dedicated account instead of the local user account.

To configure the settings mentioned above please log on to the system as the same user configured above. Call the creator.exe from the Aloaha PDF Suite installation folder (c:\program files\wrocklage\creator.exe) and configure these advanced options.