Creating a PDF from Excel typically requires printing to the “Adobe PDF” printer, selecting the location and file name to save the .pdf as, and finally getting the newly created PDF opened in Acrobat. Automating this is not very straight-forward, and took quite a while to get “right”.

Background

There is no direct COM API that can be used to tell Acrobat to “convert this sheet to PDF please”, and all the solutions I’ve found on the net have been missing pieces of the puzzle (i.e. lots of hardcoded values, only works on the computer they were made on, or requires you to do manual steps before you can start.)

The most common manual step is that you have to uncheck “Don’t send fonts to Adobe PDF”, or as it’s called in recent versions of Acrobat:

Adobe PDF setting: Use system fonts

The problem here is that this setting is in no way persistent, often resetting to its checked state – and there is no registry setting or .ini file setting to force it unchecked.

What you’ll need

As usual, these are the specific versions I use – other versions should work just as well.

• Excel 2003
• Adobe Acrobat 8
• A printer with a PostScript driver (you can also install a dummy printer if you don’t have a “real” printer)

The code

Some of this code is based on this PCreview.co.uk forums post (I can’t remember if this was my original source, but it’s the closest I can find)

You’ll need the file cAcroDist.cls, a class that handles the Distiller events – either import the linked file, or create a new class in VBA and paste the following:

On to the PDF producing code – either use the code below, or import this handy pre-made module: PrintToPDF.bas (note that this needs some manual changes).

In a new module, create the following Sub:

This procedure finds a specifically named printer, uses its driver to produce a PostScript file, then uses Acrobat Distiller to convert the .ps to .pdf. You will need to add a reference to Acrobat Distiller manually in the VBA editor.

Finally, we need the NetworkPrinter function, which locates which port a printer is on – you CAN hardcode sDummyPrinter to something like “HP Deskjet on Ne03:”, but that will only work on computers that have the printer on that exact port. The NetworkPrinter function – slightly modified solves this:

This is also defined in PrintToPDF.bas linked above.

Example use

To convert the “Report” sheet in the currently active workbook to a PDF, use this code:

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Today, after rebooting from some Windows updates, my RAID1 disk suddenly was write protected – but a way to change it was nowhere to be found. After some digging, I found that others have reported the same problem.

Background

As far as I can tell, it seems to be a weakness in the 64-bit drivers for the on-board RAID on some motherboards that causes it. For the record, mine is a Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P, and I’m running Windows 7 RC (7100) 64bit, but it seems to be reported for all 64 bit versions of Windows.  Anyhow, the fix itself is simple, and seems to stick over reboots, and hopefully it’s permanently fixed.

Fixing the problem

To solve the problem, we need to open an elevated command prompt; in both Windows 7 and Vista, you do this easily by hitting the Windows button, typing “cmd”, right-clicking the “C:\ cmd” search result, and selecting “Run as administrator”. In Windows 7 you can also find Command Prompt in the Start menu and Ctrl-Shift-click it, to open it elevated.

(Disclaimer: The DISKPART tool can potentially remove/create partitions on your hard drive, so be 100% certain what you’re doing before you hit Enter)

In the elevated Command Prompt, type “diskpart” and press enter:

On the diskpart prompt, list your volumes:

In my case, the volume on my RAID was volume 4, so I selected it:

…and then I marked it writeable like this:

Here’s the entire segment in a screenshot (note that I did a couple of extra steps selecting the disk, this is apparently not necessary):

DISKPART commands for removing read-only

I found this blog post, Simple Python ctypes Example, on Reddit, and thought I’d see how different the procedure was for Windows.

What you’ll need:

• Visual C# 2008 Express Edition (Visual Studio 2008 will also work – and is what I used, but will again base this on free downloads)
• Python 2.5 or higher (I used Python 2.6.2)

Creating the DLL

Create a file dlltest.c with the following content:

Start the Visual Studio 2008 Command Prompt from the Start Menu (this sets up the path for the compiler and other files, which makes things easier) and go to the directory you saved dlltest.c to.

Compile it with the following command:

cl -LD dlltest.c -Fetest.dll

Testing the DLL

As in the original Linux example, this DLL is easily tested using similar commands:

So, that is the simplest DLL possible, I’ll look at (same as the original blog post) applying it to more complex examples later.