Save as PDF

Before we go too far down this road... can someone confirm a point?

I don't have it installed anywhere so I can't check, but I'm not remembering that the limited free Distiller installed by the FM installation has the Watched Folder capability. I'm thinking that it's only available in the full Acrobat version...

Art

Janice,

When you print to the Adobe PDF printer, the end result is the PDF file. You do not have to distill anything. A temporary PS file is created, Distiller is opened to distill the PS file, then closed when finished deleting the PS file in the process. This is the method I use to create PDFs.

If you actually want to use Distiller directly, then when you print to the Adobe PDF printer, you need to select Save to File. Then the printer creates the PS file but does NOT distill it; you can then distill it using Distiller. It all depends upon whether you want to set your Distiller options in the Adobe PDF printer dialog or in Distiller. I have yet to find a reason to use Distiller directly. I just print to Adobe PDF printer without saving the file to disk; the end result is the PDF without having to use Distiller directly.

You asked about watched folders. Distiller has the feature of being able to look in watched folders for PS files. To do this, you create an empty folder, say on your desktop. Then open Distiller and set your job options. In Distiller, there is a command to select one or more watched folders. Then you leave Distiller running.

Go back to the application from which you need to create a PDF, then print to the Adobe PDF printer and SAVE to file, but save the file in the IN folder inside the watched folder. When the app has completed creating the PS file, Distiller opens it automatically and distills it, placing the PDF file in the OUT folder inside the watched folder. While Distiller is creating the PDF, you can do more work in your application. I generally do not use this feature because I have found that the vast majority of time spent in creating a PDF is consumed by the application making the PS file, whether temporary or not. The actual distillation process is usually very fast.

Van

Arnis,

I'm not sure what you mean by "using watched folders in Distiller". If that means setting my default printer to Adobe PDF as users have suggested, I tried that yesterday after the lengthy PDF creation to see if it would produce a PDF quicker.

This may sound stupid, but it appeared to save the document with a ps extension in my Documents folder and it didn't open automatically. When I do a search for the file, I cannot locate it (have searched entire computer including hidden folders). So I obviously have something set incorrectly and haven't seen how this process helps. I know this is basic, but when I set my default printer to Adobe PDF, how do I then distill the file (particularly when I can't find it!). That is, what should other settings be to complete the distill process?

Janice

Hi everyone,

Using FM8.0p277 Vista.
I really hate to beat up on a topic. I posted a message that got no reply earlier & I'm not sure if that's because no one noticed the post or perhaps no one knows the reason...

I like the feature "Save As PDF" for the most part. I have a document that is about 80 pages and yesterday I created a PDF of it. I hadn't done so in a while and it took a whopping 45 minutes. In reviewing it, everything seemed to be there (no missing graphics or wierd text or anything). But as I was reviewing the PDF, I realized I needed to change a couple of figure titles. I did that this morning and updated my FM doc. (the TOC, LOF, etc); then regenerated a PDF of the exact same document using "Save As PDF" and it took only 3 minutes. (This is when I like "Save As PDF".)

A colleague of mine suggested that software like FM that allows multiple undos saves a lot in history (that may not even be visible in Edit>History anymore). He suggested that perhaps this affects the distilling process. Anyone?

I'm assuming "Save As PDF" is designed with the intent to simplify the process. I know it's an ongoing issue; just curious if this is an accurate assessment of why it behaves so differently from one time to the next.

Thanks,
Janice

Hi!

When using the Save as PDF command in FM9, it doesent print registration marks, and inserted pdf files, comes out in low resolution. Why?
I'm using the trial version.

I have been using FM (Version 8.0p277 on Vista) for less than a year and have ignored suggestions to set my default printer to Adobe PDF because "Save as PDF" has worked well until recently. I created a book of only about 80 pages (with maybe 1 screenshot per page) by using the "Save as PDF" approach, and it took about 35 minutes. I'm not very technical, but a co-worker suggested that because FM allows multiple undos, alot of memory gets used in storing that history and that could create speed issues in creating PDFs. A few days later, I created a PDF of the same book. I had made fewer changes to the FM document and it took less than 3 minutes to distill. Any thoughts on this theory?

Hi Dov,

Thank you for the clear overview.
Like I pointed out in my second message, I didn't find any differences. Except for the PDF version: 1.6 instead of 1.4.
Do you have any clue?

regards
Marco

Just upgraded to FM 9 and it appears that the Save As PDF finally works! However, for those of you that jumped onto the FM 9 bandwagon, I have seen some strange behavior that sometimes FM doesn't do anything if you try more than one Save As PDF from a document.

I'm not sure if it was because the generated PDF already existed or some other issue. I'll keep on trying to figure out but I'd be careful if you think that a PDF was actually generated (when in reality it may not have been)!

On Vindows Vista Ultimate SP1 and have Acrobat Pro 9 (that I got with CS4).

(1) Beginning with FrameMaker 7.0, the "save as PDF" feature in FrameMaker was at least viable compared to failed efforts prior to 7.0.

(2) To be very clear, what the "save as PDF" feature does is to internally create PostScript via the AdobePDF PostScript PostScript printer driver instance, funnels same to the Distiller with the user-specified job options, deletes the PostScript file, and then optionally calls Acrobat or Reader to display the resultant PDF. FrameMaker does NOT natively generate PDF (unlike InDesign, Illustrator, and Photoshop).

(3) The "save as PDF" feature in recent versions of FrameMaker is much more stable than in 7.0. Added stability is provided for "save as PDF" by applying the Microsoft Windows OS fix that resolves the problem of "missing text."

(4) There is no logical difference between printing to the AdobePDF PostScript printer driver instance and manually creating PostScript and saving to FILE: and then distilling same. The results and stability are the same. As such, advice to manually create PostScript and distill as oppose to printing directly to the AdobePDF PostScript printer driver instance is pure poppycock / bubbameiser / urban legend!

- Dov

Hi Mike,

Thank you for your reply.
I assume it depends on the settings on the system then.

I normally create PDF using the ps and distiller way. But I am investigating the Save as PDF way. When I compare both ways, they look simular (even in detail when creating a report in Pitstop). The only thing that is different is that the PDF versions are different. We have the setting in the joboption that it should be PDF version 1.4. So our PDF's have this setting, but not for the Save as PDF way. In that case we get a 1.6 version (though we use the same joboptions).
Do you maybe have an explanation for this?

Thanks in advance!
Marco