PrincePDF: PDF export

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by Djeturn

How easy (or difficult) would you say it might be to port this plugin so that it uses WeasyPrint? It's not as "complete" as Prince is, but from my brief usage it feels like it's good enough for ebooks, and is a free alternative.

I've looked at the installation instructions and setting up WeasyPrint is not exactly easy, because of the many dependencies. OTOH, Prince requires only a single binary. This doesn't make WeasyPrint a good candidate for a plugin.

[AutomaticSync]

Hello,

I'm reaching out about a similar issue with the Prince PDF plug-in. I am a MAC OS user.

I downloaded the Prince PDF plug-in and the prince installation file.

I am having trouble installing the Prince file. When I open it to install it simply expands to a folder, and within that folder there is an install file (install.sh). When I open this, it simply opens a text file with a lot of code. Do you know if this is supposed to happen?

You mention in the plug-in section for Prince PDF on this forum that we need to "Make sure to install prince in the default location."

Where is the default location? I'm wondering if this is related to my issue using prince pdf on Sigil.

After doing this I tried to use the Prince PDF plug-in in Sigil and it's giving me this response:

Status: failed

prince not found: /usr/local/bin/prince

I have prince in my files but it's not detecting it. Can you help me with this issue?

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by AutomaticSync

I downloaded the Prince PDF plug-in and the prince installation file.

I am having trouble installing the Prince file. When I open it to install it simply expands to a folder, and within that folder there is an install file (install.sh).

The Prince developers apparently didn't provide a proper installer. Users are expected to run a shell script, which will install prince in /usr/local/bin/prince.

For detailed instructions see the Prince PDF website.

Note that you'll need to replace to prince-9.0-macosx with prince-12.4-macosx. For example:

tar xzf prince-12.4-macosx.tar.gz 
cd prince-12.4-macosx

If you have additional questions about other plugins, ask the plugin developers not the Sigil developers.

[RbnJrg]

Hi Doitsu;

Would it be possible to modify your "plugin.py" file so the path to Prince.exe is able to be different from the standar location?

TIA
Rubén

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by RbnJrg

Would it be possible to modify your "plugin.py" file so the path to Prince.exe is able to be different from the standar location?

You can specify a custom prince path by inserting the following entry at the beginning of PrincePDF.json:

  "prince_path" : "D:\\Program Files (x86)\\Prince\\engine\\bin\\prince.exe",

(Obviously, you'll need to change the path.)

Note also that you'll have to use double backslashes (\\) in Windows paths.

[RbnJrg]

Originally Posted by Doitsu

You can specify a custom prince path by inserting the following entry at the beginning of PrincePDF.json:

  "prince_path" : "D:\\Program Files (x86)\\Prince\\engine\\bin\\prince.exe",

(Obviously, you'll need to change the path.)

Note also that you'll have to use double backslashes (\\) in Windows paths.

Thank you Doitsu but, where can I find PrincePDF.json in my system? I can't find it anywhere.

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by RbnJrg

Thank you Doitsu but, where can I find PrincePDF.json in my system? I can't find it anywhere.

In Sigil, select Edit > Preferences > Open Preferences Location then double-click the plugins_prefs folder and create a new PrincePDF folder. In the PrincePDF folder, create a PrincePDF.json text file with the following contents:

{
  "prince_path" : "D:\\Program Files (x86)\\Prince\\engine\\bin\\prince.exe"
}

If you add additional entries, you'll need to terminate the line with a comma:

For example:

{
  "prince_path" : "D:\\Program Files (x86)\\Prince\\engine\\bin\\prince.exe",
  "cpdf": true
}

[RbnJrg]

Originally Posted by Doitsu

In Sigil, select Edit > Preferences > Open Preferences Location then double-click the plugins_prefs folder and create a new PrincePDF folder. In the PrincePDF folder, create a PrincePDF.json text file with the following contents:

{
  "prince_path" : "D:\\Program Files (x86)\\Prince\\engine\\bin\\prince.exe"
}

If you add additional entries, you'll need to terminate the line with a comma:

For example:

{
  "prince_path" : "D:\\Program Files (x86)\\Prince\\engine\\bin\\prince.exe",
  "cpdf": true
}

Many thanks!! All worked perfectly.

[roger64]

Sigil 1.0.

I have to adapt the output to create my custom 9×12 size. It was easy three years ago, Now I find it difficult... Life goes like that.

Can we select a preference which tells the plugin to follow the Sigil structure every time? (furthermore, it seems we have no choice on this regard because it can only work this way)

Edit: Done. Would have been quicker if I did not throw away the epub.css file... Happily save exists.

[Reader0531]

Hello,

I am trying to run PrincePDF with Sigil.
When I run the plugin It seems to be OK but I get a "permission denied" error in the last leg of the process (see below)
I run Linux Mint.
Thanks

...
prince: used font: Times New Roman, Italic
prince: /home/xxx/Desktop/xxx.pdf: error: can't open output file: Permission denied
prince: Finished: failure

Return code: 1
Prince failed!

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by Reader0531

I am trying to run PrincePDF with Sigil.
When I run the plugin It seems to be OK but I get a "permission denied" error in the last leg of the process (see below)

This might happen if your Desktop folder has name other than "Desktop" or if the output file is locked by another process. Try changing the following entry in PrincePDF.json:

  "output_dir": "/home/xxx/Desktop/"

so that it points to an existing folder.

[Reader0531]

Originally Posted by Doitsu

This might happen if your Desktop folder has name other than "Desktop" or if the output file is locked by another process. Try changing the following entry in PrincePDF.json:

  "output_dir": "/home/xxx/Desktop/"

so that it points to an existing folder.

Thank you for the quick answer.
It fixed my problem instantly.
Thank you very much.
Great Sigil plugin

[Sonotoki]

Hello everyone!
I've installed all the prerequisites (Python 3x, PrincePdf, cpdf.exe to the Windows folder), but there's error when launching the plugin:

Status: failed

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Program Files\Sigil\plugin_launchers\python\launcher.py", line 142, in launch
    self.exitcode = target_script.run(container)
  File "C:\Users\Sonotoki\AppData\Local\sigil-ebook\sigil\plugins\PrincePDF\plugin.py", line 115, in run
    if not os.path.isfile(prince_path):
  File "genericpath.py", line 30, in isfile
TypeError: stat: path should be string, bytes, os.PathLike or integer, not NoneType
Error: stat: path should be string, bytes, os.PathLike or integer, not NoneType

[Sonotoki]

Originally Posted by Sonotoki

Hello everyone!
I've installed all the prerequisites (Python 3x, PrincePdf, cpdf.exe to the Windows folder), but there's error when launching the plugin:

Status: failed

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Program Files\Sigil\plugin_launchers\python\launcher.py", line 142, in launch
    self.exitcode = target_script.run(container)
  File "C:\Users\Sonotoki\AppData\Local\sigil-ebook\sigil\plugins\PrincePDF\plugin.py", line 115, in run
    if not os.path.isfile(prince_path):
  File "genericpath.py", line 30, in isfile
TypeError: stat: path should be string, bytes, os.PathLike or integer, not NoneType
Error: stat: path should be string, bytes, os.PathLike or integer, not NoneType

Ahh! I'm really sorry, my bad! I thought that I don't need to set the path of PrincePDF, since it's installed properly, but when I wrote the path in PrincePDF.json, then everything worked out ))

[codrut_popescu]

Hi,

I am new to this. I am trying to convert my ebooks (which I own and purchased) from epub to pdf. The ebooks are actually DRM free, they are ebooks from raywenderlich but I would like to read them on my pdf e-reader (Quaderno). For this I have installed Calibre and Sigil and the Prince PDF plugin and conversion went fine, actually better than I have expected, except the pdf does not have a cover.
Now, the original book when I open in iBooks it does have a cover. But when I open it in ebook-viewer it does not have a cover. So, what is wrong here?

Thanks