I don’t know why, but cups-pdf does not work for me any more. There is now an easier way than to set up and print with cups-pdf.
You do not need to configure anything 
Just do as you would had installed a Printer (File -> Print) and select Print to file an as output format: pdf. Press Print and you are done
Thank you for your contribution. Nice. I had exactly the same problem in my Ubuntu 8.10.
I found the problem. Make a folder called “PDF” (not “Pdf” nor “pdf”) in your home directory or it will not print. Then install the CUPS-PDF printer as follows:
In a terminal window enter:
sudo apt-get install cups-pdf
The method of printing to file works, but lacks the GUI control of the pdf printer. For example, you cannot control the DPI or the header and footer on each page of the PDF output file.
The fact that the user must create the folder “PDF” is a bug since the installation script should create it automatically.
To change the default location of the PDF output:
Edit the /etc/cups/cups-pdf.conf file with:
gksudo gedit /etc/cups/cups-pdf.conf
look for:
Out ${HOME}/PDF
and change to something like below:
Out ${HOME}/my_print_to_pdf_folder
and restart:
sudo /etc/init.d/cupsys restart
Sorry, the last command in my previous message did not work in my Ubuntu 8.10, i.e:
sudo /etc/init.d/cupsys restart
I also tried to change the default output folder from:
Out ${HOME}/PDF
to a PDF folder contained in an NTFS Windows partition:
Out /media/Datos/Usr/PDF
unfortunately this change did not work. I would appreciate if someone else can share his experiences with the default output folder.
I would appreciate telling me how you succeded in writing PDF files in UBUNTU. Many thanks,
Professor Ioan Merches