Pdfbrew

Pdfbrew is a simple python app to replace some of the functionality of PDF Distiller. It monitors folders for new postscript files and converts them into pdf in output folder using ps2pdf.

Configuration

Configuration is in yaml format.

• watch - pairs of input:output folders to watch for files and convert
• loglevel - the logging level for the application
• logfile - self explanatory
• delete_onfail: If the file fails to convert after the predefined number of attempts, delete it. Setting it to false will keep trying to convert the file indefinetly.
• copy_original - True or False - copy the original file in the output_folder (sets delete_original to True)
• polling_interval - how often remote folders should be checked for changes
• fail_tries - Number of tries to convert a file before it fails
• purge_age - delete converted file after predefined period of time (2 weeks)
• purge_int - interval in seconds to run the purge job for the old files (24 hours)
• purge_err_int - interval in seconds to run the purge job for stale error files (1 hour)
• num_workers - number of worker threads to process convert/delete events
• ps2pdf_opts - additional arguments that can be specified when running ps2pdf. In case your option is a password you can use the special string RANDOMPASS and it will be replaced with random password

# which folder to watch for new files
# containts pairs of input and output folders
watch : 
 /home/sas/in1 : /home/sas/out1
 /home/sas/in2 : /home/sas/out2

# delete original file if it fails to convert for
# the specified number of tries
# if set to no it will continue trying indefinetly
delete_onfail : yes

# copy original file in the output_folder 
# alongside the converted one 
copy_original: no

# debug level 
loglevel: INFO

# logfile
logfile : pdfbrew.log

# directory polling interval
polling_interval: 15

# number of tries for failed attempts
fail_tries:  10

# how long to keep converted files (in seconds)
purge_age: 1209600

# how often to run purge old files job (default every day at 00:05)
# uses crontab expressions
purge_int : '5 0 * * *'

# how often to remove stale error files (default 1 hour in seconds)
purge_err_int: 3600

# number of convert worker threads
num_workers: 4

# filetypes to convert from
# ignores other files in input dir
filetypes: 
 - application/postscript
 - application/pdf
 - text/plain
 - application/octet-stream

# ps2pdf args 
# string RANDOMPASS will be replaced with a random password
# use for g.g. -sOwnerPassword if you want to have a random one
ps2pdf_opts : -dCompatibility=1.4 -sOwnerPassword=RANDOMPASS

Command line arguments

usage: pdfbrew.py [-h] [--loglevel LOGLEVEL] [--logfile LOGFILE]
                  [--configfile CONFIGFILE] [--quiet]

Monitor folder for ps files and convert them to pdf

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --loglevel LOGLEVEL   FATAL, ERROR, WARNING, INFO, DEBUG
  --logfile LOGFILE     Logfile to store messages (Default: pdfbrew.log)
  --configfile CONFIGFILE
                        Config file in json or yaml format
  --quiet               Do not print logging to stdout