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rlauriston
Inspiring
May 18, 2009
Question

FM 9 compatible with Acrobat 8?

  • May 18, 2009
  • 2 replies
  • 3542 views

I'm evaluating a trial version of FM9.

I already had Acrobat Standard 8 installed, so I skipped the PDF option of the FM9 install based on past experience with FrameMaker's built-in partial Acrobat distribution trashing Acrobat Proper.

FM9 (as noted in some previous topics here) would not save as PDF. I repaired Acrobat 8, no change. So as to continue with the evaluation, I installed a trial of Acrobat 9, but I don't want to buy it as it has no new features I need.

So is there a way to get FM9's Save as PDF feature to recognize and use Acrobat 8?

By the way, any Adobe types who are following this, your proprietary download manager is horribly buggy and slow, you should dump it. Also, the Acrobat 9 installer is preposterously slow (took overnight), you should switch to whatever you're using for FrameMaker 9, which worked OK.

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    2 replies

    CtDave
    CtDave
    Participating Frequently
    May 20, 2009

    Some correlation between FrameMaker and Distiller may be useful.

    Some snippets from Adobe TechNotes.
    "You can create PDF files in Adobe FrameMaker by saving a FrameMaker document as a PDF file or by printing to the Adobe PDF printer. Both methods use Adobe Acrobat Distiller..."

    and

    "Make sure that you use a version of Acrobat Distiller that is compatible with FrameMaker."

    FrameMaker 8.0.4 (p277) is compatible with Acrobat 9 .
    FrameMaker 8.0 is compatible with Acrobat Distiller 8.0.x.
    FrameMaker 7.2 is compatible with Acrobat Distiller 7.0.
    FrameMaker 7.1p116 is compatible with either Acrobat Distiller 6.0 or 7.0.
    FrameMaker 7.1b023 and 7.1p114 are compatible with Acrobat Distiller 6.0.
    FrameMaker 7 shipped with Distiller 5.05
    FrameMaker 6 shipped with Distiller 4.05

    And, for FM 9.x we got/have Distiller 9.x

    Be well...

    A
    Art Campbell
    Inspiring
    May 18, 2009

    If I were you, I'd get out of the habit of using SaveAs PDF for both 8 and 9 because it's buggy, and start printing to the logical Adobe printer that's already on your system.

    Cheers,

    Art

    R
    rlauristonAuthor
    Inspiring
    May 18, 2009

    >start printing to the logical Adobe printer that's already on your system

    People have been telling me to do that for years, but I've found saving as PDF perfectly reliable since at least 5.5 so long as it's set up properly.

    Arnis Gubins
    Arnis Gubins
    Inspiring
    May 20, 2009

    Robert,

    The key words really are "so long as it's set up properly". If you've already got Acrobat 8 installed, then you should be able to create PDFs via SaveAs with the Distiller from that version. The printer instance name is the same (Adobe PDF) and that's all FM needs to know. However, some Registry entries for Acrobat may be messed up (depending upon whether it Acrobat8 was clean install or upgrade or installed in a different locatin from C:\Program Files\...), which prevents FM9 from properly handing off the tps files to Distller. I had that issue during the FM9 pre-release program with Acrobat8. There was a bit of Registry spelunking and cleaning required to get it to work.

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