'Printing' to pdf

[Glint]

Hi all. On my desktop I print emails I want to keep or online receipts etc. Does anyone know of a way to do this on my PDA?

Thanks,


Glint

[cteel2004]

If you're talking about printing to an actual printer you might want to try ActivePrint (http://www.ActivePrint.net).

However, the subject line for your topic suggests you're wanting to convert the information to a pdf file. There is no way that I know of to do that from a mobile device yet. There are some online services where you can send them a file and then they will convert it for a fee.

[Glint]

Thanks cteel2004, and yes I'd like to convert emails etc to pdf files.

[ch_thom]

As cteel2004 said I'm not aware of any software to convert documents to .pdf format on a PDA, although there's nothing stopping you simply porting the stuff to a desktop and running it through an Adobe Acrobat converter before printing.

If you decide you want to print things without conversion then there are several options available depending on the operating system on your PDA.

Windows Mobile 2003 SE and before:

Print Pocket CE - prints Pocket Word, Pocket Excel, emails, notes, .txt and .rtf files
http://www.fieldsoftware.com/PrintPocketCE.htm

Printboy same as Print Pocket CE really
http://www.bachmannsoftware.com/pbce.htm

Hp mobile Printing - Added printing functionality to other products such as image viewers and document readers. It was pre-installed on most iPaqs running 2003 and 2003 SE but is now discontinued. As it was a free distribution you may find a copy somewhere.

Westek Clearvue Office Suite (in conjunction with HP mobile Printing or using their own JetCetPrint) - Prints Word, Excel and .pdf documents
http://www.westtek.com/products/

Windows Mobile 2005:

Things get a bit trickier here as until recently there was no way to print word documents etc. due to the change in the operating system. A recent release of Clearvue (see link above) however has enabled the printing of Word, Excel, Powerpoint and .pdf documents as well as image files.

Also for Mobile 2005 and Print Pocket CE (see link above). Their website states that the program doesn't work with mobile 2005 and they have no plans to update it. However it still works for emails, notes, .txt and .rtf files - just not for the new mobile word and mobile excel types.

Finally all of the above mentioned programs support printing direct from the PDA over wireless, IRDA (infrared) and Bluetooth (not all products support all methods and obviously your PDA has to support them as well). The best thing to do is check out each one then determine what one best meets your needs.

Personally I've used a combination of all of them in the past with the HP Mobile printing being one of the best for 2003 and 2003 SE devices. On my current Windows Mobile 2005 device (Jasjar) I use Clearvue for Word, Excel and .pdf document printing and PrintPocket CE for emails, .txt files, labels etc. I print over wireless on my home network and have an HP Deskjet 450C with bluetooth and battery expansions as well as a Brother MW100 IRDA thermal printer (for envelope labels), which between them covers all my mobile printing needs.

Hope this has helped.

[packets]

Pdfwriter is what I use on my PC, here are a couple links that might help, don't know how to do this on a PPC:

http://dx.sheridan.com/advisor/pdfwriter.html

http://www.performancegraphics.com/Pages/acrocomp.html

:|

[Glint]

Thanks ch_thom. An awesome response.