topic Re: Inventor Viewer API in Inventor Programming Forum

Inventor Viewer API

Anonymous — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 06:52:04 GMT

Does the Inventor Viewer have a API that I can use? I am interested in opening a drawing with an Inventor Viewer and after that send the document automatically to printer. Can this be done automatically?

Re: Inventor Viewer API

Anonymous — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 13:24:52 GMT

Hi,

you don't really need the viewer! Have a look at the SDK sample "Standalone Applications\ApprenticeServer\FileDisplay"

Bernhard

Re: Inventor Viewer API

Anonymous — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 13:33:48 GMT

yes, you may be right. But do you know if the apprentice supports printing or exporting to pdf?

Re: Inventor Viewer API

Anonymous — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 13:44:14 GMT

yes apprentice supports printing but as I know not tools which need translator add ins like

PDF STEP SAT ...

The only way is to use free PDF Printers! Before IV has supported PDFs I have used a standard PostScrip Printer and converted it with GhostScrip to PDF. Then you can use apprentice!

Bernhard

Re: Inventor Viewer API

Anonymous — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 13:45:39 GMT

Which is the print method? I want to use a printer that in facts prints to pdf.

Thanks

Re: Inventor Viewer API

Anonymous — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 13:53:54 GMT

It's the same as the standard one, but you have to use ApprenticeServer and ApprenticePrintManager!

Bernhard

Re: Inventor Viewer API

Anonymous — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 13:59:09 GMT

yes ... found it. I tried using the PrintToFile method hoping to get easy with it. But when I try to open the pdf file it gives me an error. Any ideea why?

Re: Inventor Viewer API

Anonymous — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 14:02:51 GMT

Yes you need a printer with API! Thats the reason for my workaround with PostScript and GhostScript!!

Bernhard

Re: Inventor Viewer API

Anonymous — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 14:06:33 GMT

Yes you are very right. I am sorry for being so impacient, but I was doing some tests while searching answers on forum. Looking through Autodesk forum I found out that in fact PrintToFile creates a PostScript file, not a pdf file. I transformed it into a PDF using PDFCreator. Now I have a nice good looking PDF.

Thaks a loot for all the help.

Re: Inventor Viewer API

Anonymous — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 04:57:06 GMT

No problem 🙂

Bernhard