LAN PDF Printer

LAN PDF Printer turns a macOS machine into a LAN-visible printer that saves incoming jobs as PDFs instead of printing them.

It uses macOS's built-in ippeveprinter service to advertise an IPP Everywhere printer over Bonjour/DNS-SD, accepts PDF print jobs, and writes them into a folder on the host Mac. In practice, this lets a Windows 11 machine discover a printer on your local network, print to it, and have the "printed" output appear as PDFs on the Mac.

Status

• Host OS: macOS only
• Client support: tested with Windows 11 on the same LAN
• Installer: not yet; setup is command-line based
• Scope: PDF-only job handling, no PostScript/PCL/raster conversion

What It Does

• Advertises a printer on your local network
• Accepts IPP print jobs
• Saves each job as a PDF to a configured folder
• Runs in the foreground or as a per-user LaunchAgent
• Normalizes page order for Windows jobs that arrive with face-up ordering metadata

Requirements

• macOS with /usr/bin/ippeveprinter
• Python 3.13+
• A client on the same local network
• For the tested path: Windows 11 as the printing client

Quick Start

1. Clone the repo.

2. Copy the sample config:

   cp config.example.toml config.toml

3. Edit config.toml to choose your printer name and output folder.

4. Install the package:

   python3 -m pip install .

5. Verify the setup:

   printtopdf doctor

6. Run the printer:

   printtopdf run

7. On Windows 11, add the printer and send a test job.

Configuration

The app reads config.toml from the project root by default. Start by copying config.example.toml.

printer_name = "Home LAN Printer"
output_dir = "~/Documents/RemotePrinterPDFs"
spool_dir = "~/Library/Application Support/PrintToPDF/spool"
port = 8631
location = "Home Office"
log_file = "~/Library/Logs/PrintToPDF/remote-printer.log"

Field reference:

• printer_name: the name users see when they add the printer
• output_dir: where saved PDFs are written
• spool_dir: temporary working directory used by the printer service
• port: IPP service port
• location: human-readable location string shown to clients
• log_file: JSON-lines log for service starts and saved/rejected jobs

Commands

Check the configuration, show the IPP URI, and verify local DNS-SD visibility:

printtopdf doctor

Run the printer in the foreground:

printtopdf run

Install and load the per-user LaunchAgent:

printtopdf install-launch-agent

The LaunchAgent writes ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.printtopdf.remote-printer.plist, starts at login, and keeps the printer running for that user session.

Windows 11 Setup

1. Open Settings > Bluetooth & devices > Printers & scanners.

2. Wait briefly to see whether the configured printer name appears automatically.

3. If discovery is delayed, add it manually with:

   ipp://<your-mac-local-hostname>.local:8631/ipp/print
   

4. Print a test document.

5. Check output_dir on the Mac for the new PDF.

printtopdf doctor prints the exact IPP URI using the Mac's current local host name.

Troubleshooting

Windows says "connecting" for a long time

• Make sure the printer service is actually running on the Mac.
• Run printtopdf doctor and confirm DNS-SD is visible.
• Allow incoming connections for Python or Terminal if macOS prompts for firewall access.

Windows can discover the printer but jobs do not arrive

• Confirm the Mac and Windows machine are on the same LAN.
• Check log_file for job_saved or job_rejected entries.
• Manually add the printer with the IPP URI if auto-discovery is flaky.

PDFs save but page order is reversed

• Current builds normalize page order for jobs that arrive with output-bin=face-up.
• If you still hit this, keep the log entry and the sample PDF; that means the client is using a different ordering signal.

The LaunchAgent is installed but not running

Use:

launchctl print gui/$(id -u)/com.printtopdf.remote-printer

Then inspect log_file.

Architecture

• printtopdf run starts ippeveprinter
• ippeveprinter advertises the printer and spools incoming jobs
• a small Python hook validates the incoming document
• accepted jobs are saved into output_dir
• metadata is written to log_file

This keeps LAN PDF Printer small and uses macOS's built-in IPP tooling instead of a custom print server.

Development

Run the test suite:

python3 -m unittest discover -s tests

Run the local IPP smoke test:

RUN_IPP_TESTS=1 python3 -m unittest tests.test_integration

Limitations

• macOS host only
• no GUI
• no installer yet
• PDF-only handling
• no authentication
• intended for trusted local networks