PrintPDF start-up question

Naive user problem.

I am having a trouble understanding how best to operate PrintPDF.
It is setup as per the documentation to watch a PS3 file appear in the RAM disk and to create a PDF file from it.

This all works satisfactorily.

The problem is that I have to run !PrintPDF independently from !Printers before it will work, whereas is seems to imply in the manual that it is enough for !PrintPDF to have been seen at Boot.
Until !PrintPDF is run, print jobs disappear, and magically spring to life when the app is run.

I am happy to run the PrintPDF myself but would like to tie it to the running of !Printers. Would it makle sense to add a line to the !Printers !Run file to achieve this or is there a better way.

I’ve stuck this at the very top of my Printer’s !Run file:

%Filer_Run <Obey$Dir>.^.!PrintPDF

whereas is seems to imply in the manual that it is enough for !PrintPDF to have been seen at Boot.

Yeah, the installation instructions are a little confusing in that respect, but it’s mostly concerned with having PrintPDF ‘known’ to the system.

The page on Using PrintPDF says quite clearly: To use PrintPDF, double-click to install it on the iconbar in the usual way.

Until !PrintPDF is run, print jobs disappear, and magically spring to life when the app is run.

Yes. What happens is the printer driver writes out files with randomised names to the temporary location – RAMdisc in your case. That’s all the printer driver does.
PrintPDF waits for files to appear there, and when they do, it’ll process them into PDFs. So clearly if PrintPDF isn’t running, it can’t do it’s thing.

There’s an option to have PrintPDF running without having an iconbar icon visible, you might like to consider that for a tidy iconbar? It’ll sit patiently waiting for files to process, and pop itself up when there’s something to do.

Thanks Rick – your suggestions have solved the problem.
Now running smoothly with no icon.
Should have done this years ago instead of suffering a vague unease and confusion ever since Steve released PrintPDF.