Re: Excel to pdf command line

On Fri, 17 Aug 2007 13:18:10 -0700, gautam.bakshi@gmail.com wrote:

> I am looking for a tool that converts excel files to pdf and can be
> used with Microsoft windows command line.

I doubt there is a directly working free program available for this.
There is a workaround, though. If you right-click on *.xls files
within the Windows shell, you'll see a "Print" entry. The printing
is done via DDE.

Take a look into your Registry. First look for *.xls in HKCR. The
standard value of this key should be sth. like Excel.Sheet.8. Now
browse down to a key of this name. Open the subkeys of that key to
access <shell> -> <Print> -> <ddeexec> -> <ifexec>. The
last one will
have a DDE string as value, which will be executed if the Print entry
of the right mouse menu inside the Windows shell is selected. You'll
probably see: [open("%1")][print?()][quit()] (This hasn't changed at
least between v97 and v2003, which versions I just checked.)

Go to:

www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyIDÀ9BF7F7-D30E-4CE9-8930-5D03748CA5C
D

to get the Excel macro help file as reference for the Print function.
The possible parameters are:

PRINT?(range_num, from, to, copies, draft, preview, print_what,
color, feed, quality, y_resolution, selection)

Only the last one is of importance, if you want to print whole
workbooks rather than just the last active sheet. Change [print?()]
in the DDE string above to [print?(,,,,,,,,,,,3)]. The number 3 for
the "selection" parameter means: all sheets (2 = all selected sheets;
1 = selected range of the active page of all selected pages).

Now you could print any *.xls file to the Windows standard printer.
If you set up a *.pdf printer driver as standard, you don't need to
make any more changes to the above mentioned DDE registry entry. If
you prefer another printer as standard, you need to insert an entry
like [PrinterSetup("MyPdfPrinter")] ahead of the print entry.
(Replace "MyPdfPrinter" by the actual name of your *.pdf printer
driver.)

That much as preparation talk. Now a switch to freeware.  ;-)

If you don't already have a free *.pdf printer driver, you can get
FreePdfXP here:

www.shbox.de/fpx732.htm

There are other ones out there. But that's the one I like best.  ;-)
Don't forget to install the current AFPL-Ghostscript as well, which
is linked to from the same page above.

To execute the printing from command line scripts: Grab the ClassExec
utility written by Freddy Vulto:

www.fvue.nl/wiki/ClassExec

It provides the functionality to run DDE commands.

HTH.
BeAr
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