Print and PDF Pictures Copyright (C) Moose O'Malley, ---------------------- October 2009. +===========================================================+ | T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S | +===========================================================+ | * Introduction | * Why I wrote this program ? | * Credits / Thanks | * Installing and Using this Program | * Uninstalling this Program | * The Future | * Reviews / Awards / CDs | * Freeware Information | * Warranty | * Amendment History | * Contacting the Program's Author +===========================================================+ Introduction : -------------- Print and PDF Pictures is a program for Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, etc. This program is free software. Anyone - any person, any company, or any business - can use this program for free. No fees or payment is required. See "Freeware Information" below. Print and PDF Pictures enables you to drag and drop a whole bunch of pictures from Windows Explorer, move or sort these into the required order, and then either : - Print them all out to a printer, - Or, if you have Adobe Acrobat Distiller installed (http://www.adobe.com/), then you can print them all to the Acrobat Distiller, which places all of the images into a PDF (Portable Document Format) file. At the moment, every image is enlarged to fill the page, and each image is printed one per page. (Options to allow you to customise these and other settings are planned for the future - see "The Future" below). At the moment, the program supports ".BMP", ".JPG", ".JPEG", ".EMF", and ".WMF" graphics file formats. (Options to allow you to use other graphics file formats are planned for the future - see "The Future" below). This program should be useful to anyone who wants to print a number of images, or get them into a suitable format that enables easy reading "on screen". Developed using 32-bit Delphi. This program will **NOT** run under Windows 3.x (even with Win32 installed). Why I wrote this program ? -------------------------- Lately, I have been busy scanning many of my oldest computer magazines and manuals into my computer. They are getting very old - some are over 20 years old - and their condition is deteriorating steadily. So, I decided to scan them in and store them electronically before they deteriorate any further. However, having these scans in individual files means that they are difficult to read on screen - you need to load each image in, read it, load the next image in, read it, etc. In addition, these images are also very difficult to print. You need to load the image into a graphics program, like Paint Shop Pro, print it, load the next image in, print it. To print a whole magazine's worth of scans would take hours, and be a frustratingly slow process. To PDF it is even worse ! The only way I found to do this was to manually load all of the images into a Word Processor - one by one - and reszise each image, add page breaks, etc. If you had a couple of hundred images to do, this this would take several hours and be frustratingly tedious and slow work. What I needed was a program to print all of my images automatically, or, better yet, enable me to print them all into a PDF document so that I could read this on screen. I did a quick search of the internet, and found very few links that looked promising for what I needed to do. When I followed these up, I found software that didn't do what it promised, was extremely difficult to use, and costed a fortune. Drum roll please ... Enter Print and PDF Pictures. So, as I usually do, I decided the only way to get the functionality I wanted was to write my own software. So, I sat down and wrote this program over the course of a couple of nights. Print and PDF Pictures enables you to drag and drop a whole bunch of pictures from Windows Explorer, move or sort these into the required order, and then either : - Print them all out to a printer, - Or, if you have Adobe Acrobat Distiller installed (http://www.adobe.com/), then you can print them all to the Acrobat Distiller, which places all of the images into a PDF (Portable Document Format) file. At the moment, every image is enlarged to fill the page, and each image is printed one per page. (Options to allow you to customise these and other settings are planned for the future - see "The Future" below). At the moment, the program supports ".BMP", ".JPG", ".JPEG", ".EMF", and ".WMF" graphics file formats. (Options to allow you to use other graphics file formats are planned for the future - see "The Future" below). The program is extremely easy to install and use, and it is incredibly inexpensive. I personally use this program extensively, and I hope you find the program easy to use and useful. Credits / Thanks : ------------------ None at this stage. Installing and Using this Program : ----------------------------------- To use this program, unzip the contents of the ZIP file to a directory - such as c:\Print_Pictures\ - and run the executable file : Print_Pictures.EXE. If you want the program to run automatically when Windows starts up, then select this option under the "File" menu in the program. If you would like to be able to run this program by clicking on an icon in the Windows Start Menu, or on the Desktop, etc then you can use the "Create Shortcut ..." options under the program's File menu. I hope you find the program easy to use and useful. Uninstalling this Program : --------------------------- At the present time, there is No Uninstall function. If you ever want to delete this program from your computer, then : 1. Exit the program, and delete it from wherever you installed it on your harddrive. Before doing this however : - If you have selected / enabled the "Auto-Run at Windows Startup" option (under the File menu), then you should ensure that this option is not checked / enabled (which you can easily do by re-selecting the "Auto-Run at Windows Startup" option from under the File menu). - If you have used any of the "Create Shortcut ..." options under the File menu, then you should use the "Delete All Shortcuts" option under the File menu to remove these from your system. Simple as that ! The Future : ------------ There are many things I could do with this program in the future, for example : - Support for more advanced print options. e.g. setting margins, maintaining aspect ratio, etc. At the moment, every image is enlarged to fill the page, and each image is printed one per page. - Support for more graphics file formats. At the moment, the program only supports ".BMP", ".JPG", ".JPEG", ".EMF", and ".WMF" graphics file formats. - Ability to remove the "Courtesy of ..." message at the bottom of each page. - Ability to set the print title, document name, etc. - Ability to output the page number to the bottom or top of each page. - Anything else ?? If you would like any of these improvements, or would like to suggest more, please email me and let me know. How much more work I do on this program depends entirely on what support I get, how many people use the program, etc. Reviews / Awards / CDs : ------------------------- None so far. Freeware Information : ----------------------- This is free software. Anyone - any person, any company, or any business - can use this program for free. No fees or payment is required. However, if you find the program useful, then please consider making a PayPal donation to support my efforts. (To make a donation, please run the program and select the "About" option under the Help menu, and then click the PayPal link on the "About" screen). Warranty : ---------- This software and the accompanying files are provided "as is" and without warranties as to performance or merchantability or any other warranties whether expressed or implied. You should seek always professional advice if there is anything you are not sure about. You should seek professional advice to double and triple check everything that this program tells you. The user assumes the entire risk of using this software. If you do find any faults with this program, email me and let me know. Amendment History : ------------------- Vers Date Description 1.0 24-Mar-2003 First Public Release. (48,830 lines of code / comments.) 1.0f 3-Sep-2007 This program is now FREEWARE - see "Freeware Information" above. Remove the "courtesy of" message that used to appear at the bottom of every page of print out or PDF. 1.1f 6-Oct-2009 Enable the user to move or remove multiple items at a time, as requested by Mark. Thanks for your kind words and feedback Mark. Bring the program up to date with my latest libraries, includes, etc. (51,005 lines of code / comments.) If this program was not downloaded from my Home Page, then it is possibly an old version. The latest version of this program is available from my WEB page - see below. Mike "Moose" O'Malley ____________________________________________________ Moose's Software Valley - Established July, 1996. WEB: http://move.to/moose ____________________________________________________