Problem Creating Postscript File with FrameMaker 7.2

1_adobe user- Those temp files are not deleated if you have a FM problem. But with 23 GB space, this is not your problem.

In your Aug 22 remarks, you said that you were able to create PS files, but you were still unable to do so for the complete document. As long as you have this problem, the "Save As" will never work.

Is the Error you note the one from the Distiller log when you did a "Save As"?

The more I re-read your problem, the more I believe that there is something wrong with a file in your book and until you can generate a PS file for whole book, you will never fix it by changes to version of Distiller (any release).

Have you tried to create a PS file for only the file that you are having a problem with (where you have to create 2 or more PS files) and see if it generates a PDF. This can be done either through the book or with the file open. I believe all of us would like to know the results.

You also say that other colleagues (PCs)have problems, with long FM files, company format or? If you are share folders, have you tried having one of them try printing the pS file then distilling a PDF for you? This may narrow the problem down?

Although you have set up your Distiller, you can change to other default setting without changing your companies configuration. Have you tried using "standard" as your default setting.

Rebecca-Glad someone else understands the process of creating a PDF.

Thomas- Sorry, but I had no time or need to look through the Forums when Dov Isaacs was around. Until about 2 years ago, I had direct access to Adobe Tech support as a reseller (adobe changed reseller access to free tech support and now charges). Since I don't know anything about this individual, it's hard to respect his knowledge and your thoughts as to what he knows.

Let me say this a different way -either by using my example, "Tektronix 550" PS printer or "Adobe PDF" printer during "Print Book", or using "Save As Book", they all generate a postscript file. Both the "Tektronix 550" PS printer and "Adobe PDF" printer must be distilled to get a PDF, As Rebecca noted, the "Save As Book" also generate a postscript file using the "Adobe PDF" printer and then opens your distiller to generate a PDF, then it deletes the postscript file after distilling.

No matter which of the procedures listed about you use to create a PDF, that PDF that you now have is no longer dependent on the printer used in FrameMaker. If you open this PDF in Adobe Acrobat or Acrobat Reader there is no where in Document Properties that identifies what printer was used in FM to create the PS file. The only thing that you can find out is what version of the PDF Producer (Distiller) was used along with fonts security, etc. (Distiller configuration settings). Anyone can open this PDF (as long as you have Acrobat or Acrobat Reader installed) and print with any printer configured on their system, this is one of the advantages of a PDF. For those that use the Save As to automate the process of creating a PDF are letting Adobe do what others are doing manually.

You said that "If you create a PS for the intent of distilling it into a PDF, then the Acrobat Distiller is the device, and the printer to use is the "Adobe PDF" printer. Period". Suggest that you should take a closer look at the "Acrobat PDF" printer and a configured PS printer. Both have the same Adobe PDF Properties and options, the difference is Printing Preferences. The "Adobe PDF" printer has one additional tab called "Adobe PDF Settings" which are the same settings options in Distiller found from the drop down menus. Did you know that the "Adobe PDF" printer and a correctly installed PS printer use the same PostScript Printer Driver version (currently 5.2 (5.1.2600.1106)) but each uses their own PPD.

So far you keep telling me I'm wrong by generating a PS file and distilling. Let me say that if there is going to be a problem in generating a PS file in your way or mine, that problem will be there in both. And any problem in that PS file will give the same error in distiller, you way or mine. Again, the "As IS" or by distilling a PS file opens the same configured Distiller. In your case you have an option tab called "Settings" in the PDF Setup for Selected Files" that allows you to change the "PDF Job Options" and "page size", before doing the PS and PDF task.

I agree that setting up Distiller is important. I don't follow your remarks on "admittedly, the interaction between FrameMaker and the different Acrobat components are sensitive to how they were installed and setup". Other than where we install a software packages (drive or folder), do we, as the end user, have control of an installation other than a standard or custom install. We do have set-up options. after installation. Sorry but you have not shown any reason that "Adobe PDF" printer as you state "is the way to go".

You also state that " The recommended long-term solution is to trouble-shoot and set up your Acrobat installation correctly". Sorry, Acrobat has nothing to do with the program Distiller. In fact if you don't buy Acrobat, you till get Distiller with FrameMaker, so maybe you should have said "Distiller installation". And yes Distiller needs to be setup depending on what your PDF is to be used for.

Just to let you know I've been a writer and a journalist since 1968 and had have no idea what you mean by your particular situation? Can only say that the manuals and documents I work on are commercially printed and are used by administrators, end users and service individuals. The PDFs that are generated from these documents go on to CDs and DVDs along with products.

1adobe_user,

check your printer settings (if you use Adobe PDF or some other one) and change the default "optimize for speed" to "optimize for portability (or "page independence" or whatever is is called) and try again.

Helge

I tried distilling another book and this time I received the following message:

%%[ Error: undefined; OffendingCommand: P144200 ]%%

Stack:
0
0
0
1
/composite?
-dict-

I created PS file hru Print Book. No pdf were created usig the Safe As pdf method. Again, no problem if I did it my old way - breaking up to smaller ps files and distilling it.

Thanks for all the suggestions and info.

I am on Windows XP. Have already requested the person-in-charged to check our licensing on Frame 7.x and Distiller 7. I told him they come together and Distiller 7 is free (or we already paid for it). Most probably I will be the one installing that on my PC sometime in the next few days.

When I start distilling (with Distill 6), it creates temp files in Profiles\(my profile)\Temp\Acrobat Distiller 6. After each successful/ unsuccessful distill, all temp files are deleted automatically by Distiller. Unless there is a special setting thru Distiller that limits the size of the temp directory/ files, I don't think temp is the issue here as I still have about 23G of freespace on this harddisk partition.

I have not being in this forum long enough to know who Doc Isaacs is. Will check his past posts on PS. Maybe I am confused but pretty much everyone said so far regarding PS make sense.

I have not tried the Safe As *.pdf feature but I doubt that the outcome will be any difference. Yes, I do have a Adobe PDF setup and I (or actually we) also have some custom setting for our PDF requiment such as number of pixels for images printing etc.

My FrameMaker is basically a new installation. I installed it about a month ago on this new PC. The same issue also pops up with other colleagues (PCs) whom have been using for more then 1 year.

Thanks for the info about how to track down temp files!

And on the rest of the discussion... From Sherman's original comment, I got the impression he thought everyone else was recommending to use Save As PDF and he was recommending to print to postscript then distill the .ps file.

To clarify, that isn't the issue here. Using Save As PDF is almost identical to printing a postscript and then distilling it. With Save As, FM creates a postscript file, distills it, then deletes it. With the print function, you do the distillation step yourself. Once you get the Adobe PDF printer set up and working properly, for almost all PDFs it doesn't matter which of the routes you take.

Cheers, Rebecca

1adobe_user,

I missed your OS. Is it Windows XP?

What printer do you use (in Control Panel > Printers and Faxes)? Adobe Distiller printer? Do you have "Adobe PDF" printer?

Open your FrameMaker book, use File > Save as, select PDF as Save as type. Does that work for you?

Regards,

Sean

David-- Maybe you should take some time out and try reading Adobe's own online help for FrameMaker 7 on generating PS files and PDF's before you start telling people it's a bad idea. It also might be worth your time in communicating with Adobe's tech support and see what they say also. Here is what the Adobe online help says about PS files and PDF

"If you have Acrobat Distiller installed, you can convert documents to PDF files by creating a PostScript file and then distilling the file yourself. By using Distiller, you can explicitly set some advanced settings having to do with compression, font embedding, and color conversion. However, saving as PDF (see Saving documents and books as Adobe PDF) is often faster and more convenient and produces excellent results. In fact, if you can set up Distiller Job options beforehand, they become available in the Settings section of the PDF Setup dialog box in FrameMaker. Also, if you're working on a platform where Distiller is not available, you can create the PostScript file and then move it to another platform to distill it there."

Rebecca- The temp files may be found in Documents and settings\,yor name>\local settings\temp. To eliminate these temp files and any others you never need, go to Start button>search>For files or folder. In the search for files or folders named enter *.tmp. When the searc is complete, you may highlight these files and do a File>Delete. There may be pop-up messages that some of these tmp files are being used. If this happens and you do have programs open, try closing them down first. By the way FM also generates a large number of FrameLog...Txt files and can be cleared out as well (these are in the FrameMaker7.2 folder

1_adobeuser-- you should not have a page limit in working with FM. Although you work-around may take longer, it works. However this does not solve the problem, there is no reason you can't print from a book as you do from Print Selected Files. I agree with David. The "install" readme file for FM 7.2 states:

It is recommended that you use Distiller 7.0 for optimal PDF creation from FrameMAker 7.2. NOTE: If you have the full verson of Acrobat 6.0 installed you can continue to use the Distiller function installed with Version 6.o, or you can choose Yes to install Distiller 7. Be aware that in order to install the newer version, you will be prompted to uninstall the previous version, which will completlty remove the Acroba 6.0 program files and folder from your system."

To clear out any possible problem with tmp files, follow the procedures outlined for Rebecca.

Suggestion- If you do and you should update distiller, and you have the same problems, this would be the time to call Adobe tech support since you may now fall into the area on problems with new installations.

On David's reply to question on a generic PS printer causing problems with your print shop and conflicts, he would be right if he is talking about creating a PS file and sending that to your printshop.
The conflict would be most likely be a fonts issue if you don't use the standard Type1 fonts in your document and what settings the generic printer has by default.

If David was talking about a PDF that was generated by a generic PS printer and distilled, he would be wrong. One of the advantages of a PDF is that it doesn't care what printer was used to create the PS file and distilled, that PDF will print on a PS printer or any off the shelf printer.

By the way if you print shop uses a RIP you may be able to send them the PS file if you don't need a PDF.

Question-have you tried uninstalling FM and reinstalling it again or installed it on an other PC and had the same problem printing from the book?

I still believe the problem is something on the page that is stopping FM from printing. One other suggestion to see if it's a graphics issue, rename the graphics folder and open your FM document with no graphics and try printing from the book and see if it works.

"On this forum, you will get may people that state that the only way to generate a PDF is through FM using the Adobe PDF printer, I disagree. Even FM tech support and the online help provide procedures on how to generate a PS file first."

For goodness sakes Sherman, when even Dov Isaacs has bothered to come onto the forum and explain how what you're proposing is pretty much always a Bad Idea, isn't it time for you to drop it? :-/

Anyways, 1adobe_user, you should uninstall the Distiller 6 and install Distiller 7. It's free (or rather, you already paid for it!) and it's better.

"Another question - if I install a generic PS printer but my printer (print shop) is using some other printer, will there be a conflict or something like that?"
Yes, something like that.

Weird. Could be worth checking whether your temp directories are full - maybe you've got heaps of space in general but the temp directory is limited. I don't know which temp directory FM depends on. Can someone else chip in with that info?

Cheers, Rebecca

I think printing a ps file using the Adobe PDF distiller printer and then distilling it has the same effect as just printing to the Adobe PDF printer.

On my system, the fix seems to be a function of the Xerox PS driver generating PostScript code that Distiller can process instead of choking on.

Also, if you go hunting for another PS printer driver, make sure you get an Adobe PS driver. H-P for a long time shipped a PS emulater that will cause you even more problems.

Why not ask your print shop what they're using? However, once you get to the PDF, it shouldn't matter.

Art