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June 25, 2025
Question

FrameMaker 2022 to PDFx1a2001 (Font embedding and annotations)

  • June 25, 2025
  • 1 reply
  • 444 views

I'm having few issues that I hope to resolve...

1. I can't produce a PDFx1a2001 from FrameMaker without it giving me errors that "Annotations were found inside the BleedBox, TrimBox, or ArtBox on the following pages"... and it's practically every page in the document because there's an extensive linked index and a lot of cross-references. We are only concerned with printing to a digital press at the moment, so I'm not concerned with linked references for the print version. It would be nice to understand why this is an issue though, so when the online version goes live it will be interactive. (And I won't have to create a separate PDF for online... although that wouldn't be a tragedy if it comes to that.)

2. Depending on the distiller settings I use, I get missing font errors (Times New RomanPS MT and Times New RomanPS Italic MT) even though I have the fonts installed and Distiller has the folders in the Font Locations. I have everything set to embed (and subset) all fonts. In FrameMaker, my print settings for Adobe PDF printer have "Rely on system fonts only; do not use document fonts" unchecked. It's important to note that the majority of the book doesn't use these fonts; these are fonts that came in with imported graphics (mostly or all EPS files) that I can't modify myself because I don't have Illustrator. This has not been an issue with prior editions of the book, so it must be something in my system setup? Or did something change in FrameMaker and the way it handles fonts? (I'm wondering because we didn't have an issue with missing fonts before, but recently I discovered others that were dropped from the book and I had to re-install them. But reinstalling these two Times New Roman PS fonts is not doing the tricke.)

Thanks for any insight

    1 reply

    Matt-Tech Comm Tools
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    June 25, 2025

    Hi Lin, my first question is "Why PDFx1a" as it was developed in 2001.

    I believe PDFx4 was developed in 2008, and thus is more likely to be able to handle things like what you're describing.

    I've not run across your "Annotations" errors before, so with luck, the more recent PDF job options will remedy that.

    For the missing fonts, I suggest you review my writeup at 

    https://techcommtools.com/framemaker-pdf-tips-and-tricks/

    For fonts in EPS files, you may need to force download of the fonts by customizing the job options.

    Also, here's an overview of PDF job options I created previously

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5-Nl7sMvoE

     

     

    -Matt Sullivan, FrameMaker Course Creator, Author, Trainer, Consultant
    Known Participant
    June 25, 2025

    Hi, Matt,

    Quick answer before I start clicking the links you provided...

    Why 1a? Because that's what the printer told us to use. I'll ask in my meeting this afternoon if 4 is ok to use.

    Followup issue: I was going to try out the x4 settings to see what I would get, and I don't have those settings installed. I have no idea what version of Distiller I'm using, because the About information that is usually on the Help menu in most apps is not there. I'm not sure if that's a clue as to my setup and maybe that's a potential problem...?

    I'm going to start reading/watching what you sent now, but wanted to answer that part. Thank you!

    Matt-Tech Comm Tools
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    June 25, 2025

    You mentioned Distiller...the faster and better conversion to PDF is with the Publish panel and/or using Save as PDF.

    If you are printing to an Adobe PDF printer driver, that could be your issue.

    -Matt Sullivan, FrameMaker Course Creator, Author, Trainer, Consultant