HOWTO: PDF Windows Network Printer with Samba

[Warren Togami]

http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue72/bright.html

"PDF documents provide a great way to pass around documents on the
Internet. They have many uses, such as sending quotes and invoices to
business clients. Two of the main reasons the PDF format is so popular
is that it preserves all of the document's formatting exactly and it is
easily viewable on almost all platforms. For many computer users stuck
in the Windows paradigm, creating PDF documents means forking over
precious cash to the folks at Adobe. However, this article will show you
how to use Linux, Samba, and Ghostscript to provide a PDF creation
service to both Windows and Linux users. Of course, all of this can be
obtained for free." 

"First, let's take a look at the overall scheme of operation. We will
use Samba to provide a "pseudo-printer" service (it will look like a
standard printer to clients) that will use Ghostscript to create a PDF
document out of any Postscript printer job that is queued onto it. We
will then configure the Windows machines to use this shared printer and
send jobs to it in Postscript form."