Sending data to a printer in Java

Question

The code below sends data to a printer however, while it reaches the printer queue it comes back with a Unable to convert PostScript file. I thought that this would be overcome by specifying the flavor but this is not the case

import javax.print.Doc;
import javax.print.DocFlavor;
import javax.print.DocPrintJob;
import javax.print.PrintException;
import javax.print.PrintService;
import javax.print.PrintServiceLookup;
import javax.print.SimpleDoc;
import javax.print.attribute.PrintServiceAttribute;
import javax.print.attribute.standard.PrinterName;

public class New1 {

   public static void main(String[] args) {

       try {

           String s = "Hello";

          // byte[] by = s.getBytes();
           DocFlavor flavor = DocFlavor.STRING.TEXT_PLAIN;
           PrintService pservice = PrintServiceLookup.lookupDefaultPrintService();
           DocPrintJob job = pservice.createPrintJob();
           Doc doc = new SimpleDoc(s, flavor, null);
           job.print(doc, null);

       } catch (PrintException e) {
           e.printStackTrace();
       }      
   }
}

Solution

Using only JPS you will have problems with Mac. My suggestion is use Java 2 Print API + Java Print Service.

Java 2 Print API is something like 1990 style. To avoid to create your code using Java 2 Print API you could use PDFBox http://pdfbox.apache.org as a framework.

With PDFBox you could create a PDF document (http://pdfbox.apache.org/1.8/cookbook/documentcreation.html) but instead of save, print it using that code:

PrinterJob printJob = PrinterJob.getPrinterJob();
PrintService service = PrintServiceLookup.lookupDefaultPrintService(); 
printJob.setPrintService(service);      
document.silentPrint(printJob);

It works fine in my Mac.

Comments

[Robert]

Have you tried using an DocFlavor.INPUT_STREAM.AUTOSENSE and an StringInputStream instead?

[James Harpe]

I'm having the same problem and DocFlavor.INPUT_STREAM.AUTOSENSE does not help.