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Marco van den Biggelaar
Participant
January 21, 2009
Question

Save as PDF

  • January 21, 2009
  • 61 replies
  • 11047 views
Hi All,

I'm working with Framemaker 8.0p277 on a Windows XP machine.

Often I read answers that one should not use the Save as PDF option. Instead one should print to a Postscript file and distill that file.
But why is the first option is less better then the second? Can someone please explain this for my understanding.

regards
Marco
    This topic has been closed for replies.

    61 replies

    Show previous replies
    A
    Anonymous
    February 4, 2009
    Thank you, Sheila. It's embarrassing that I call myself a Technical Writer and I couldn't follow simple instructions!

    Van,
    Does it matter whether the printer is set to Adobe PDF if you use the Archive plugin then? My images are all stored in one folder, but they are on the network.

    Ok everyone, I have set my printer to Adobe PDF, restarted FrameMaker and have set the same document mentioned previously to print. It so far still seems to be taking longer than I expected (10 minutes so far & it's only 46% done). I'll let you know what I learn. In the meantime, you'll miss me...

    Janice
    Software Maniac
    Software Maniac
    Inspiring
    February 4, 2009
    Don't know. Will verify all of those settings. Thanks for the advice. Then what would you all have suggested for pre-FM9 in order to print to PDF? The Save As PDF would frequently crash under FM8 and FM7 under Windows Vista.

    I tried the Save As PDF under FM9 and it worked. Some Type 1 fonts got crushed (I'll check on your comments, Arnis) and non-opaque frame backgrounds (like a 20% blue) rendered 100% blue. Not exactly what I wanted.

    I will uninstall a HP Postscript driver that I found. Yikes!
    _
    _Van_Kurtz_
    Known Participant
    February 4, 2009
    Janice,

    This may not be relevant to the speed differences you are finding, but working over a network (especially with your imported by reference image files residing on a network drive) can slow things down considerably. I use the Archive plugin to move all the files to my machine and then create the PDF from there; cuts the time in more than half.

    Also, if you inadvertently hide graphics, PDF creation is very fast, but I doubt if you did that.

    Van
    A
    Art Campbell
    Inspiring
    February 4, 2009
    Why do you think you need one?

    To amplify what Shelia's saying.... The installed Acrobat software IS the printer to use. You don't need anything else and beyond that, don't use anything but that printer instance.
    A
    Anonymous
    February 4, 2009
    Maniac, do not, under the pain of severe head-banging angst, install anything like a "generic Postscript Printer". Yes, there is one that can be obtained on the Adobe website downloads area, but it is not, repeat NOT, usable in any functional way, it's ancient, antique, brain-dead, not even a true PS printer if I recall Dov Isaac's many postings about it over the years.
    A
    Anonymous
    February 4, 2009
    Janice, the .dll that you download does work with FM8, no problem.

    There are instructions on the page telling where to put the .dll file:

    http://www.sundorne.com/FrameMaker/Freeware/setPrint.htm

    No editing or unzipping or anything else of the .dll is needed.

    The .ini file can be edited in Notepad as per the instructions.
    Software Maniac
    Software Maniac
    Inspiring
    February 4, 2009
    Wow - this thread has gotten wild...

    Say, I have seen many issues with PDF with pre-FM 9. And now with FM 9, Save As PDF:

    1. Works (well, kind of)
    2. It may be slow, but I don't really care -- I want #1 (Works) to work!

    I'm on Vista, just upgraded to FM 9 and in trying Save As PDF, I see:
    1. Color rendering doesn't always work (just spot color, no CMYK)
    2. Fonts get really messed up (some fonts do anyway)
    3. It uses the similar Acrobat options (including presets!)

    How do I know something is really amiss? Well, I created the exact same document (same layout, fonts, styles, ...) using InDesign and Save As PDF works flawlessly.

    So, in trying the Print to PDF, I need a generic Postscript Printer. Does anyone know of one? The one on the Adobe site can't install on Vista SP1 (I had it somehow working on Vista Sp0 but not sure how).

    Any additional threads you all can recommend?
    Arnis Gubins
    Arnis Gubins
    Inspiring
    February 4, 2009
    You need to print to the "Adobe PDF" printer instance, not some
    generic postscript printer (this is no such beast anyway). Postscript
    is device dependent and that printer instance is the one specifically
    developed for creating postscript suitable for PDF conversion by
    Distiller.

    The Save As PDF process in InDesign writes directly to PDF. The
    process in FM, on the other hand, silently prints to a temporary
    postscript file using the Adobe PDF printer instance, opens Distiller
    and creates a PDF using the joboptions specified in the Save As PDF
    dialogue window. You can't compare the two processes.

    What specific fonts get messed up? Are these in locations that
    Distiller knows about? Do you have any font substitutions specified in
    the AdobePDF configuration (Printers > Properties > Device Settings >
    Font Substitution table)? Do the printing preferences for the AdobePDF
    printer instance have the "Rely on system fonts" option checked? (It shouldn't be.)

    For CMYK colour rendering, did you uncheck the "Convert CMYK colours
    to RGB" option? Which joboptions did you select? The CMYK SaveAsPDF
    works quite well except for imported PDFs and WMF/EMF files. All FM
    defined colours are properly maintained. The best graphic format to
    safely pass through CMYK colours is still EPS in FM9.
    A
    Anonymous
    February 4, 2009
    Arnis,

    This utility looks interesting. I just attempted to download it. It says it's been tested for FrameMaker 6.0 and 7.0. I'm using 8.0 and assumed it would work. Figured I could undo the steps if it didn't. However, it automatically tries to open the file in Notepad and most of the document seems to be garbage characters. It doesn't give an option to open the file in another text editor or program. Any ideas?

    Janice
    A
    Anonymous
    February 4, 2009
    Hi all,

    Please let me reiterate, I really like the idea of, and would rather use, the "Save As PDF" feature. I would really love the feature if it would create a PDF for a <100 page document in 3 minutes instead of sometimes taking almost an hour for basically the same document. This method hasn't caused problems in terms of messing up the content of my document. It just seems inconsistent in how long it takes to produce a PDF of the same document after a few changes.

    I'm (reluctantly) willing to set my default printer to Adobe PDF if, as many who have posted before say, it produces PDFs more consistently and quickly. When I did set my printer to Adobe PDF yesterday, I must have left the setting Save to File, because it did create a ps file that I had to manually set to distill. It didn't automatically create and open the PDF file. This still took time (just under 10 minutes).

    I'm getting the impression that I could either change the settings and use the Adobe PDF printer or accept the fact that producing a PDF using the Save As method is not always quick.

    Thanks for all the input. I'm learning...
    Janice
    Arnis Gubins
    Arnis Gubins
    Inspiring
    February 4, 2009
    Janice,

    FYI, there's a utility called SetPrint from Sundorne
    (http://www.sundorne.com/FrameMaker/Freeware/setPrint.htm) that will
    automatically set the AdobePDF printer instance as your default in FM
    and reset it to whatever you had for your other applications.
    Dov Isaacs
    Dov Isaacs
    Legend
    February 4, 2009
    If you don't want to use the save as PDF feature, you might as well print to the Adobe PDF PostScript printer driver instance as opposed to hacking around with watched folders and other similar mishagoss. There is absolutely NOTHING that manually distilling PostScript or using watched folders adds to your performance or functionality.

    - Dov
    - Dov Isaacs, former Adobe Principal Scientist (April 30, 1990 - May 30, 2021)
    Arnis Gubins
    Arnis Gubins
    Inspiring
    February 4, 2009
    Dov,

    I have to respectfully disagree on the performance aspect. I've
    documented and submitted examples of substantial performance
    differences in printing to the printer instance connected to the FILE
    port and distilling vs. printing to the printer instance connected to
    the Adobe PDF Port vs. using Save As PDF. I've seen this happen
    through various versions of the products (FM and Acrobat) on different
    machines, so it's not just a simple user/configuration issue. In an
    automated workflow where (tens of) thousands of pages are being
    produced on a regular basis, this is a real PITA.

    There's something in the Adobe PDF Port that doesn't always play nice
    and really slows things down to a crawl when creating the .(t)ps file.
    I agree that logically, there shouldn't be a difference, but
    factually, there is.

    Is there another explanation that you can shed some light on for the
    differences in processing times that Janice has seen?

    As an aside, for print production from FM, the SaveAsPDF route
    triggers the "Generate Acrobat Data" option and embeds all sorts of
    unnecessary crap that bloats both the postscript and resulting PDFs
    which also adds a load to the processing. The latest incarnation in
    FM9 for CMYK sounded good in theory, but so far is still very rough
    around the edges and not quite ready for prime-time.

    Any way you slice it, SaveAsPDF from FM is still a kludge until FM
    gets the ability to natively generate the PDFs like other Adobe apps.
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