As I work more with Ubuntu, I notice there’s a few quirks with it, and I was recently struck with a rather simple problem that turned in to a bigger problem. And what was more troubling was there was no REAL solution to find; it was staggering.

The Windows public seems to have a grip on the issue fairly well and there are tons of tool for it, but Ubuntu, not so much.

Try printing to PDF… or create a PDF.

I wasn’t that impressed with Ubuntu in this area. My position is that this should be something so simple to install/use, but it’s not.

Like a lot of people I’ve used Windows for years and never has this really been a big issue. For Windows I’d use CutePDF or PDF Creator or some other freeware alternative, but I found no like solution for Ubuntu.

Where Ubuntu asserts itself as being easy to use. and as a commenter said recently, “Linux is easy to use, this isn’t the 80’s”- perhaps but the solution wasn’t staring me in the face.

The first thing I did was go looking in the ‘Ubuntu software center’- there’s plenty of PDF programs to view, edit and rearrange, but there’s nothing there to allow you to PRINT to a PDF [possibly the easiest way to convert anything to PDF].

So I went searching where I found this article about adding a PDF printer- and it works, but this is NOT simple. Ubuntu is supposed to be the ‘HUMAN’ Operating System; so show me. ACK! not yet.

Some other forums were saying ‘use open office’ to create a PDF- they just weren’t understanding and it’s okay; they were trying to help. Where the solution provided is valid it’s too long to and requires a TERMINAL access.

And while I found a solution, I was not impressed at all..

The solution is found in the Synaptic Package Manager. This method, simply JUST WORKS.

But the solution is not without its problems.

Once you select and install/apply the changes to add the PDF printer, it’s listed to the printer listing for the system, but here’s the kicker…

WHERE DOES IT PRINT TO?!

It prints to the HOME PDF folder on your system. This is by default.

What’s funny about this this is that this has got to be hand-down the dumbest solution and non-developed function I’ve ever seen. This is almost like the developers just went ‘okay we can create a PDF let’s move on!’; there’s no refinement here- it doesn’t ask me where I would like to save it? there’s no option to ask about compression of security or resolution; it’s completely ‘lacking’ – in ever sense of the word.

While I could be off base, but this is the results of my finds on a base install of Ubuntu 9.10. If you’ve a better solution; one more fitting of the average user, please let me know.

Thanks,
L. Henry Jr.
http://www.lehsys.com

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