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I need a software, that emulates a printer, converts the printed documents to PDF/TIFF and send it via eMail to a specified address (for windows).

The virtual printer / PDF conversion is possible with a lot of PDF-converters. But I need a software, which is also able to directly mail me these PDFs. It's always the same mailaddress, and I have an SMTP server.

Any suggestions?

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2 Answers 2

up vote 1 down vote accepted

Commercial solutions

At least a couple commercial solutions:

Black Ice's offering looks better - can even be configured to just send directly via SMTP, without using a local email client.

Low-tech, DIY

Print to PDF using any of the converters mentioned to a specially named folder (eg print-to-mail). Then use a cron job (Linux/Mac) or Windows Task Scheduler to periodically scan `print-to-email, email it, and delete from the directory.

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I'm sure there is a better / more elegant way to do this. –  aebersold May 9 '12 at 14:08
Added notes on a few commerical solutions that do exactly this. –  ckhan May 11 '12 at 4:47
Instead of a cron job, you could just use a shell script that converts to PDF and emails it immediately afterwards (and deleting the file when finished). In Windows, you could include this script as a target for the Send To context menu. Linux doesn't have such a context menu by default, but it can be set up with one. Though the idea of a folder where you can drop files directly into an email account is interesting. I'd use inotify to monitor the directory for a file to be dropped into it. This way the file gets sent the instant a file is put in that folder. –  Lèse majesté May 11 '12 at 5:55
print2mail ist not perfect, but it does the job. –  aebersold Sep 19 '12 at 13:31

There was a software called YAFPC (Yet Another Free PDF Composser) that did exactly what you are asking.

It's website is dead but you may find it on some mirror/archive.

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