eneam
Print to PDF
Hi @DragonSlayer62
I suspect you are running version older than v,1.0.3.45. This issue was resolved in v1.0.3.45, see CHANGE_LOG.md.txt file. Let me know if that is not the case.
v 1.0.3.46
To improve mboxview, please post reviews on what works, what doesn't, create bug tickets and enhancement requests.;
Added support for file based data configuration in addition to the default Registry based.;
Updated User Manual to describe new and updated features.;
v 1.0.3.45
To improve mboxview, please post reviews on what works, what doesn't, create bug tickets and enhancement requests.;
Resolved Print to PDF failure due to change to command line arguments in Edge and Chrome browsers.;
Added experimental partial support for multiple languages.;
Updated User Manual to describe new and updated features.;
After updating Edge and Chrome browsers on my machines, print to PDF no longer works. It looks like they obsoleted the latest fix and new release is required to leverage new implementation of print to pdf in browsers. I will be releasing new version soon, in a few days I believe.
There is workaround if you are willing to try. See the closed issue "PDF conversion is broken #64" #64 for details.
Script scripts/HTML2PDF-single-chrome.cmd needs to modified as below from "old" to "new" to enable new implementation of print to pdf in the browsers. Apparently the old implementation is obsolete now.
call "%CmdPath%" --headless=new --disable-gpu --print-to-pdf-no-header --no-pdf-header-footer --print-to-pdf="%PDFdir%%HTMLNameBase%.pdf" "%HTMLFilePath%"
You also need to set "File->Print Config->User Defined Script" option and update the path to HTML2PDF-single-chrome.cmd script. See #64 .
Let me know if workaround works for you.
I let you know when I have new release of MBox Viewer to avoid to require this workaround.
Let me know if you don't have Chrome installed and will update/create similar script for Edge.
Awesome thank you for the help on this will look forward too the new version.
I have released v1.0.3.47 to resolve the reported Print To PDF failure. Thanks for reporting the issue.
The main feature of the release is support for multiple languages.
Let me know if you still have an issue with Print To PDF.
I'm having the same problem on the latest version. Printing to pdf is creating the HTML but closes right away when trying to convert the HTML to pdf.
@rapmarz16
I made simple change from headless=old to headless=new. It works on my laptop. Can you check "File -> Print Config" setup. It should be set Edge or Chrome.
@rapmarz16
Apology for the question but sometimes we all make simple mistakes. Can you check you are running v1.0.3.47 as below.
No worries. I work in IT so I know sometimes the easiest solution is the first option. I double checked version. It's the latest build. I nuked everything to restart from scratch and tried with chrome and edge. It's a large HTML about 200mb with 13,000 emails so perhaps only option is pdf merge?
On Fri, Feb 14, 2025, 3:20 PM zigm @.***> wrote:
@rapmarz16 https://github.com/rapmarz16
Apology for the question but sometimes we all make simple mistakes. Can you check you are running v1.0.3.47 as below.
image.png (view on web) https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/f0a63160-a5cd-469a-9d2b-197e82f6b3ba
— Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/eneam/mboxviewer/issues/66#issuecomment-2660190978, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AWPYOKZ5VTXVUQBR5FJJ4ET2PZFX5AVCNFSM6AAAAABWF6WMKOVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZDMNRQGE4TAOJXHA . You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID: @.***> [image: zigm]zigm left a comment (eneam/mboxviewer#66) https://github.com/eneam/mboxviewer/issues/66#issuecomment-2660190978
@rapmarz16 https://github.com/rapmarz16
Apology for the question but sometimes we all make simple mistakes. Can you check you are running v1.0.3.47 as below.
image.png (view on web) https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/f0a63160-a5cd-469a-9d2b-197e82f6b3ba
— Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/eneam/mboxviewer/issues/66#issuecomment-2660190978, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AWPYOKZ5VTXVUQBR5FJJ4ET2PZFX5AVCNFSM6AAAAABWF6WMKOVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZDMNRQGE4TAOJXHA . You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID: @.***>
It was sometime ago I tried Merge option but I seem to believe merge using free pdfbox tool creates huge PDF files. It looks like all meta data, fonts are replicated when merging. Maybe you could try to split mails into a couple of groups, print to PDF a merge PDF files using scrpts/PDFMerge-pdfbox.cmd. You would need to copy PDFMerge-pdfbox.cmd into folder with PDF files. Sounds a bit complicated but it may work better than Merge option.
I didn't try to use any of payable tools to merge multiple PDF files such as Adobe.
You could try to open your huge Html file directly by Ege or Chrome or Firefox browser and print/save to PDF. It probably will not work.
If you try one of the approaches, I am interested what worked or didn't work for you.
I decided to run two Print to single PDF tests here again:
- Printing my Inbox containing 12,192 mails resulted in ~500MB HTML file. Some of the mails contain links
- Printing of 53,320 simple USENET mails resulted in ~200MB HTML files. Mails are simple text files.
MBox Viewer attempts to convert both HTML files, it doesn't exit immediately. I have 48GB internal memory.
Unfortunately, Edge browser is still running trying to convert HTML to PDF. One instance is running over 2 hours and other over 1 hours.
I was able to print 2107 simple text emails in 2 minutes. It looks like it is doable to print 1,000-2,000 mails into single PDF file depending on mail size and complexity.
Check "Print to PDF-->Help" for performance and limitations of printing and merging.
Merge option was added mainly to overcome some formatting issues when printing multiple mails into single PDF file from single HTML file. Multiple per mail HTML files are concatenated into s single HTML. It is not just a simple concatenations. Concatenation tries to avoid leaking font formats, etc from one HTML to other HTML. In most cases Merge is not needed today. It is not doable to merge multiple PDF files using free PDFBox tool. Possibly Adobe tools may work better. if you have Adobe tools, you could update the PDFMerge-pdfbox.cmd to leverage Adobe and see it it helps. Note that opening very large PDF file is challenging for most viewers. I think PDF file can leverage Include directive but that is not supported by Browsers and likely not by PDFBox but I will check.
If you don't mind, what is your objective.
Hmm. Not sure mine is quiting immediately.
My goal is to export emails and upload to notebooklm for analysis. I need it to be sourced well and so I can point to the emails for proof.
I'm using a 8845hs with 32gb of ram so that should be beafy enough.
So the default will use that script that doesn't use chrome or edge?
On Fri, Feb 14, 2025, 8:11 PM zigm @.***> wrote:
I decided to run two Print to single PDF tests here again:
- Printing my Inbox containing 12,192 mails resulted in ~500MB HTML file. Some of the mails contain links
- Printing of 53,320 simple USENET mails resulted in ~200MB HTML files. Mails are simple text files.
MBox Viewer attempts to convert both HTML files, it doesn't exit immediately. I have 48GB internal memory.
Unfortunately, Edge browser is still running trying to convert HTML to PDF. One instance is running over 2 hours and other over 1 hours.
I was able to print 2107 simple text emails in 2 minutes. It looks like it is doable to print 1,000-2,000 mails into single PDF file depending on mail size and complexity.
Check "Print to PDF-->Help" for performance and limitations of printing and merging.
Merge option was added mainly to overcome some formatting issues when printing multiple mails into single PDF file from single HTML file. Multiple per mail HTML files are concatenated into s single HTML. It is not just a simple concatenations. Concatenation tries to avoid leaking font formats, etc from one HTML to other HTML. In most cases Merge is not needed today. It is not doable to merge multiple PDF files using free PDFBox tool. Possibly Adobe tools may work better. if you have Adobe tools, you could update the PDFMerge-pdfbox.cmd to leverage Adobe and see it it helps. Note that opening very large PDF file is challenging for most viewers. I think PDF file can leverage Include directive but that is not supported by Browsers and likely not by PDFBox but I will check.
If you don't mind, what is your objective.
— Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/eneam/mboxviewer/issues/66#issuecomment-2660597472, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AWPYOK2FHCGADNOZILM6RH32P2H5VAVCNFSM6AAAAABWF6WMKOVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZDMNRQGU4TONBXGI . You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID: @.***> [image: zigm]zigm left a comment (eneam/mboxviewer#66) https://github.com/eneam/mboxviewer/issues/66#issuecomment-2660597472
I decided to run two Print to single PDF tests here again:
- Printing my Inbox containing 12,192 mails resulted in ~500MB HTML file. Some of the mails contain links
- Printing of 53,320 simple USENET mails resulted in ~200MB HTML files. Mails are simple text files.
MBox Viewer attempts to convert both HTML files, it doesn't exit immediately. I have 48GB internal memory.
Unfortunately, Edge browser is still running trying to convert HTML to PDF. One instance is running over 2 hours and other over 1 hours.
I was able to print 2107 simple text emails in 2 minutes. It looks like it is doable to print 1,000-2,000 mails into single PDF file depending on mail size and complexity.
Check "Print to PDF-->Help" for performance and limitations of printing and merging.
Merge option was added mainly to overcome some formatting issues when printing multiple mails into single PDF file from single HTML file. Multiple per mail HTML files are concatenated into s single HTML. It is not just a simple concatenations. Concatenation tries to avoid leaking font formats, etc from one HTML to other HTML. In most cases Merge is not needed today. It is not doable to merge multiple PDF files using free PDFBox tool. Possibly Adobe tools may work better. if you have Adobe tools, you could update the PDFMerge-pdfbox.cmd to leverage Adobe and see it it helps. Note that opening very large PDF file is challenging for most viewers. I think PDF file can leverage Include directive but that is not supported by Browsers and likely not by PDFBox but I will check.
If you don't mind, what is your objective.
— Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/eneam/mboxviewer/issues/66#issuecomment-2660597472, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AWPYOK2FHCGADNOZILM6RH32P2H5VAVCNFSM6AAAAABWF6WMKOVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZDMNRQGU4TONBXGI . You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID: @.***>
Chrome or Edge or user defined scrip option are always used to convert HTML to PDF.
PDFBox and generated scripts are used to merge PDF files.
Can I assume that you can print to PDF single or mall number of mails?
32Gb should be enough unless other applications are using a lot of memory.
Let me make sure I understand what you see. Sounds Print To PDF is able to create large 200mb HTML file but MBox Viewer quits when Edge or Chrome is trying to convert HTML to PDF, right?
I am prototyping enhanced Print to PDF Merge option. Instead of creating per single mail PDF file I am trying to create HTML file from subset of mails and then create PDF. This way I will be able to reduce number of PDF files to merge from say 12,000 to 120. That may help but I doubt it PDFBox will handle many large PDF files.
Does notebooklm require single PDF or limited number of large PDF files will be acceptable?
I will try and create a screen record of it but it basically finishes the HTML and then starts to create pdf and then immediately finishes. Application doesn't crash but progress bar disappears.
Notebooklm allows 300 sources so 1 large one is not required. Just makes it easier then manually selecting a range and then printing. I just want to right click the mbox export and print to pdf.
Is there any logging on the app so I can see if there's a reason it fails?
On Sat, Feb 15, 2025, 10:04 PM zigm @.***> wrote:
Chrome or Edge or user defined scrip option are always used to convert HTML to PDF.
PDFBox and generated scripts are used to merge PDF files.
Can I assume that you can print to PDF single or mall number of mails?
32Gb should be enough unless other applications are using a lot of memory.
Let me make sure I understand what you see. Sounds Print To PDF is able to create large 200mb HTML file but MBox Viewer quits when Edge or Chrome is trying to convert HTML to PDF, right?
I am prototyping enhanced Print to PDF Merge option. Instead of creating per single mail PDF file I am trying to create HTML file from subset of mails and then create PDF. This way I will be able to reduce number of PDF files to merge from say 12,000 to 120. That may help but I doubt it PDFBox will handle many large PDF files.
Does notebooklm require single PDF or limited number of large PDF files will be acceptable?
— Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/eneam/mboxviewer/issues/66#issuecomment-2661210998, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AWPYOK6FPIHCCDX4FS6JPRL2P753LAVCNFSM6AAAAABWF6WMKOVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZDMNRRGIYTAOJZHA . You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID: @.***> [image: zigm]zigm left a comment (eneam/mboxviewer#66) https://github.com/eneam/mboxviewer/issues/66#issuecomment-2661210998
Chrome or Edge or user defined scrip option are always used to convert HTML to PDF.
PDFBox and generated scripts are used to merge PDF files.
Can I assume that you can print to PDF single or mall number of mails?
32Gb should be enough unless other applications are using a lot of memory.
Let me make sure I understand what you see. Sounds Print To PDF is able to create large 200mb HTML file but MBox Viewer quits when Edge or Chrome is trying to convert HTML to PDF, right?
I am prototyping enhanced Print to PDF Merge option. Instead of creating per single mail PDF file I am trying to create HTML file from subset of mails and then create PDF. This way I will be able to reduce number of PDF files to merge from say 12,000 to 120. That may help but I doubt it PDFBox will handle many large PDF files.
Does notebooklm require single PDF or limited number of large PDF files will be acceptable?
— Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/eneam/mboxviewer/issues/66#issuecomment-2661210998, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AWPYOK6FPIHCCDX4FS6JPRL2P753LAVCNFSM6AAAAABWF6WMKOVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZDMNRRGIYTAOJZHA . You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID: @.***>
MBox Viewer invokes Chrome or Edge as follow. If --headless=new is set to --headless=old, Chrome and Edge will just ignore command.
set CmdPath=C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\Edge\Application\msedge.exe set CmdPath=C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe
set HTMLFilePath=20160816-145446-0000007-webster.brent-users-My mixed revision working copy remains after a _svn update.htm
"%CmdPath%" --headless=new --disable-gpu --print-to-pdf-no-header --no-pdf-header-footer --print-to-pdf="%cd%%HTMLFilePath%.pdf" "%cd%%HTMLFilePath%"
I can print 1 eml to pdf without issue.
I actually found this when merging a couple pdfs later in the mergepdf logs
Error: Unable to access jarfile pdfbox-app-3.0.4.jar
So I copied the jar to the directory I was running the script in and then I got this error
no main manifest attribute, in pdfbox-app-3.0.4.jar
On Sat, Feb 15, 2025, 10:50 PM zigm @.***> wrote:
MBox Viewer invokes Chrome or Edge as follow. If --headless=new is set to --headless=old, Chrome and Edge will just ignore command.
set CmdPath=C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\Edge\Application\msedge.exe set CmdPath=C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe
set HTMLFilePath=20160816-145446-0000007-webster.brent-users-My mixed revision working copy remains after a _svn update.htm
"%CmdPath%" --headless=new --disable-gpu --print-to-pdf-no-header --no-pdf-header-footer --print-to-pdf="%cd%%HTMLFilePath%.pdf" "%cd%%HTMLFilePath%"
— Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/eneam/mboxviewer/issues/66#issuecomment-2661223955, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AWPYOK4CDR5LPHPKSMVHB4L2QADHXAVCNFSM6AAAAABWF6WMKOVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZDMNRRGIZDGOJVGU . You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID: @.***> [image: zigm]zigm left a comment (eneam/mboxviewer#66) https://github.com/eneam/mboxviewer/issues/66#issuecomment-2661223955
MBox Viewer invokes Chrome or Edge as follow. If --headless=new is set to --headless=old, Chrome and Edge will just ignore command.
set CmdPath=C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\Edge\Application\msedge.exe set CmdPath=C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe
set HTMLFilePath=20160816-145446-0000007-webster.brent-users-My mixed revision working copy remains after a _svn update.htm
"%CmdPath%" --headless=new --disable-gpu --print-to-pdf-no-header --no-pdf-header-footer --print-to-pdf="%cd%%HTMLFilePath%.pdf" "%cd%%HTMLFilePath%"
— Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/eneam/mboxviewer/issues/66#issuecomment-2661223955, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AWPYOK4CDR5LPHPKSMVHB4L2QADHXAVCNFSM6AAAAABWF6WMKOVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZDMNRRGIZDGOJVGU . You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID: @.***>
For some reason I don't see the same issue. I am running the same pdfbox-app-3.0.4.jar version. When jar file is missing you should see Message Box reporting the issue. I guess the Box was hidden/not in focus. When you point to taskbar with MBox Viewer it should bring the Message Box into the foreground. This happens because Box is shown from the separate thread. I will try to change that.
The web says that "no main manifest attribute" indicate jar is not complaint i guess with the Java standard. It looks like this can be fixed but I need to to investigate further. It is a bit surprising since the PDFBox is developed by experts I believe. I am not expert in Java.
Maybe some versions of java are more forgiving.
C:\Temp>where java C:\Program Files\Java\jdk-18.0.1.1\bin\java.exe C:\Program Files\Common Files\Oracle\Java\javapath\java.exe C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Oracle\Java\java8path\java.exe
So I copied the jar to the directory I was running the script in and then I got this error
Are you running your script or MBox Viewer is running the script?
Also, let me know your java version
I'm using the scripts now.
Basically the HTML gets created pretty quickly so now I need a quick way to make that HTML into a pdf. Which script would be best to run against that HTML to convert to pdf? Wkhtmltopdf or headless browser? Also how would I run the script against the file assuming the application doesn't do the second half and just creates the HTML file.?
Sorry to cause too much trouble, feel free to tap out at any time, I will figure something out eventually.
I'm using ecplise adoptium's open jdk 21.0.6.7
On Sun, Feb 16, 2025, 1:33 AM zigm @.***> wrote:
So I copied the jar to the directory I was running the script in and then I got this error
Are you running your script or MBox Viewer is running the script?
Also, let me know your java version
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So I copied the jar to the directory I was running the script in and then I got this error
Are you running your script or MBox Viewer is running the script?
Also, let me know your java version
— Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/eneam/mboxviewer/issues/66#issuecomment-2661278355, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AWPYOK2GSFHF3BRHU74SY732QAWL5AVCNFSM6AAAAABWF6WMKOVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZDMNRRGI3TQMZVGU . You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID: @.***>
I was running Wkhtmltopdf sometime ago to generate custom header and footer I believe. Wkhtmltopdf doesn't seem to be maintained and has issues. I would recommend to go with headless Edge or Chrome.
Simple example I have shown above. Check the scripts folder for custom scripts such as HTML2PDF-group-chrome.cmd or HTML2PDF-all-chrome.cmd. You may have touch these scripts.
I will check your progress tomorrow.
@rapmarz16
The new release v1.0.3.48 should make Print To PDF --> Merge more scalable. If you are interested to try, open Print To PDF ->Help document.
The new release should reduce conversion time and size of final PDF document. If you have mix of simple text and business mails with links to external servers, you should be able to reduce conversion time by employing multiple instances of Chrome browser to convert HTML to PDF. Depending on the number of emails and complexity, the process of converting very large number of emails may take 1 hour or 20 hours. Running multiple Chrome instances will help to reduce total time.
The generated PDF document can be very large. Chrome, Edge and Firefox browsers and even Adobe Acrobat viewer have problems handling large Gigabytes PDF files. The Okular viewer seems to be the best and also free viewer for viewing very large PDF files https://okular.kde.org/
The updated guide looks very thorough, I will run a test in the coming days and advise on results and time it took to process.
Thank you zigm for your immense effort in this project.
On Wed, Mar 12, 2025 at 5:46 PM zigm @.***> wrote:
@rapmarz16 https://github.com/rapmarz16
The new release v1.0.3.48 should make Print To PDF --> Merge more scalable. If you are interested to try, open Print To PDF ->Help document.
The new release should reduce conversion time and size of final PDF document. If you have mix of simple text and business mails with links to external servers, you should be able to reduce conversion time by employing multiple instances of Chrome browser to convert HTML to PDF. Depending on the number of emails and complexity, the process of converting very large number of emails may take 1 hour or 20 hours. Running multiple Chrome instances will help to reduce total time.
The generated PDF document can be very large. Chrome, Edge and Firefox browsers and even Adobe Acrobat viewer have problems handling large Gigabytes PDF files. The Okular viewer seems to be the best and also free viewer for viewing very large PDF files https://okular.kde.org/
— Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/eneam/mboxviewer/issues/66#issuecomment-2719203722, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AWPYOK2GPAXO64WXV2FEL5D2UCTJZAVCNFSM6AAAAABWF6WMKOVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZDOMJZGIYDGNZSGI . You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID: @.***> [image: zigm]zigm left a comment (eneam/mboxviewer#66) https://github.com/eneam/mboxviewer/issues/66#issuecomment-2719203722
@rapmarz16 https://github.com/rapmarz16
The new release v1.0.3.48 should make Print To PDF --> Merge more scalable. If you are interested to try, open Print To PDF ->Help document.
The new release should reduce conversion time and size of final PDF document. If you have mix of simple text and business mails with links to external servers, you should be able to reduce conversion time by employing multiple instances of Chrome browser to convert HTML to PDF. Depending on the number of emails and complexity, the process of converting very large number of emails may take 1 hour or 20 hours. Running multiple Chrome instances will help to reduce total time.
The generated PDF document can be very large. Chrome, Edge and Firefox browsers and even Adobe Acrobat viewer have problems handling large Gigabytes PDF files. The Okular viewer seems to be the best and also free viewer for viewing very large PDF files https://okular.kde.org/
— Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/eneam/mboxviewer/issues/66#issuecomment-2719203722, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AWPYOK2GPAXO64WXV2FEL5D2UCTJZAVCNFSM6AAAAABWF6WMKOVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZDOMJZGIYDGNZSGI . You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID: @.***>