How can I print a file from the command line?

Question

Is there a way to run a file through a print driver without opening the application?

Ex: run a .docx file, without opening word, and save it to file?

Clarification: Are you printing to a file or a physical printer? — bitcycle, May 01 '10 at 07:00

score 11 · Accepted Answer · edited Jul 31 '20 at 10:02

11

Since it is a .docx-file Microsoft Word is probably the best program to do the task.

I would have a look at the [command line arguments] to Word:

Have a look at the following switches:

/q, /n, /mFilePrintDefault and /mFileExit

(/q and /n explained in the page above, and /mXxxx refers to macros. Have a look att google.)

Example:

WINWORD.EXE your_document.docx /mFilePrintDefault /mFileExit /q /n

The following page seems to explain how to convert it to PDF.

edited Jul 31 '20 at 10:02

Ber

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answered May 01 '10 at 07:14

aioobe

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I had to use `/mFileCloseOrExit` to get the Word closed. – Passiday Aug 06 '20 at 21:15
Also, I discovered that the printing will fail if the document has outside of the printable area. Word pops up a warning and never gets to the printing. The workaround was to create a [special macro](https://www.vbforums.com/showthread.php?710129-RESOLVED-VB6-Word-How-can-I-avoid-margin-warning-messages) SpecialPrint in Normal.dotm that suppresses this warning, and use `/mSpecialPrint` instead of `/mFilePrintDefault` – Passiday Sep 28 '20 at 17:47

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered May 01 '10 at 07:15

What you are looking for is called "headless start" of the program which needs to print. I know for sure that OpenOffice can do this. Basically, you need to start it and invoke a macro which will do the printing. Even more, you can print to a PDF, HTML, or anything else that Oo supports.

This negates the need for install of Microsoft Word and the cost of license, because OpenOffice is free.

Ian Lowson · Answer 3 · 2023-03-21T11:34:44.933

If

you have problems with Macro warnings;
you are able to modify the default printer to be PDF Printer or similar;
and you have the ability to add or record Macros.

Add something like this to normal.dotm:

Sub CmdPrint()
'
' CmdPrint Macro
'
'
    Application.PrintOut FileName:="", Range:=wdPrintAllDocument, Item:= _
     wdPrintDocumentWithMarkup, Copies:=1, Pages:="", PageType:= _
     wdPrintAllPages, Collate:=True, Background:=True, PrintToFile:=False, _
     PrintZoomColumn:=0, PrintZoomRow:=0, PrintZoomPaperWidth:=0, _
     PrintZoomPaperHeight:=0
End Sub

Then call from the command line as detailed above, such as:

@echo off & setlocal
set ProjectFolder=%USERPROFILE%\Projects
set Project=MyTest
set DocType=docm
start winword "%ProjectFolder:\\=\%%Project%.%DocType%" /q /n /mCmdPrint mFileCloseOrExit

VBA hasn't rendered properly... – Ian Lowson Mar 21 '23 at 11:29 — Ian Lowson, Mar 21 '23 at 11:29

Toby Allen · Answer 4 · 2019-09-01T14:04:00.057

-1

You might be interested in DocTo which will convert a word document to another file format, including pdf and XPS but does require Word on the machine.

For example

Docto -f "c:\docs\mydocument.docx" -o "c:\output" -t wdFormatPDF

Will output mydocument.docx to c:\output\mydocument.pdf as a pdf file.

edited Sep 01 '19 at 14:04

answered Sep 21 '15 at 11:48

Toby Allen

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score -1 · Answer 5 · answered Mar 17 '11 at 19:10

If you are looking only for .docx silent printing then [aioobe] answer is the best. If you want a more generic silent print program that runs on Windows, use powershell or .NET and use the print verb. http://www.eggheadcafe.com/software/aspnet/30441939/how-to-suppress-printdialog-when-using-print-verb.aspx provides an example.

Hope this helps, if so +1 please :)

How can I print a file from the command line?

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