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mich81629860
Participant
September 19, 2018
Answered

Printing to Adobe pdf crashed MS Office products

  • September 19, 2018
  • 3 replies
  • 1953 views

I have recently transferred my Acrobat v 8 from an old XP PC to a less old 64bit Windows 7 PC.  On the XP machine it worked perfectly.  Now I'm having problems with it causing the Office product (Word Excel etc) to hang when it gets to the browser stage of selecting a location to place the pdf file.

Does anyone have a fix for this?

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer Dov Isaacs

Acrobat 8.0 does not support any version of Windows beyond 32-bit Windows XP. When Microsoft went beyond Windows XP, they changed the print architecture enough such that Acrobat's capability to print to PDF need to be significantly revised.

You didn't say how you “transferred” your Acrobat 8 from your old system to your new system, but you would have had to install it using the information supplied at Download Acrobat 8 and Acrobat 9 which includes new installation media and serial numbers (the old activation servers were decommissioned).

Furthermore, to get Acrobat 8 to work on Windows 7, you would need to subsequently update the software to Acrobat 8.1 which supports the Adobe PDF PostScript printer driver instance under Windows Vista and later.

          - Dov

3 replies

M
mich81629860Author
Participant
September 21, 2018

Hi Dov

Thanks for your response.

I'm using Acrobat 8.1.0 so according to you it should be compatible.  The Win 7 machine is a 64bit.  Yes, I did install it (with help from Adobe) from their website.

It is installed and operational, in that I can view pdfs, I just can't convert a word or excel doc using the print to adobe pdf option when I select a printer in an Office product.  That's how I've always done it, but if there is a different way then I'm open to that as a work around.

Can you help?

Thanks

Dov Isaacs
Dov Isaacs
Legend
September 21, 2018

Acrobat 8.x is too old for Acrobat PDFMaker support for modern versions of Office and as such, printing to the Adobe PDF PostScript printer driver instance to create PDF is probably your only viable option.

Regrettably, since you are running such old versions of Acrobat (and probably Office), we are really not in a position to try replicating your problem here in-house at Adobe. Sorry!

          - Dov

- Dov Isaacs, former Adobe Principal Scientist (April 30, 1990 - May 30, 2021)
    M
    mich81629860Author
    Participant
    October 1, 2018

    I've also just found that if I disable the "Prompt for Adobe PDF filename" in the Adobe PDF Settings and set it to print the file to a default Documents folder, the pdf is created with no hangups.  I can also change the folder name here.  I just can't change the filename.

    That would suggest to me that the conversion to pdf is working ok but there is an issue with being able to browse to a specific folder and change the filename (in Adobe PDF Settings).  This is where Acrobat is hanging.  It's also what I do a lot of so it would be great to have it working.

    I've tried both Word and Excel and this seems to be a workaround for me, however the other option is preferred (where the browser and file renaming can be used).

    Mich

    Dov Isaacs
    Dov IsaacsCorrect answer
    Legend
    September 20, 2018

    Acrobat 8.0 does not support any version of Windows beyond 32-bit Windows XP. When Microsoft went beyond Windows XP, they changed the print architecture enough such that Acrobat's capability to print to PDF need to be significantly revised.

    You didn't say how you “transferred” your Acrobat 8 from your old system to your new system, but you would have had to install it using the information supplied at Download Acrobat 8 and Acrobat 9 which includes new installation media and serial numbers (the old activation servers were decommissioned).

    Furthermore, to get Acrobat 8 to work on Windows 7, you would need to subsequently update the software to Acrobat 8.1 which supports the Adobe PDF PostScript printer driver instance under Windows Vista and later.

              - Dov

    - Dov Isaacs, former Adobe Principal Scientist (April 30, 1990 - May 30, 2021)
    M
    mich81629860Author
    Participant
    October 1, 2018

    Thanks Dov.

    How do I find the Adobe PDF PostScript printer driver to install it?

    Mich

    gary_sc
    Community Expert
    gary_scCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    September 19, 2018

    Hi Mich

    I do not know the specifics here (in regards to which version of Acrobat was intended to work with which PC-OS but my hunch is that the very old Acrobat 8 was not meant to work with the "less old" Windows 7.

    Here's the deal: as software companies and and enhance features for their software, they try to take advantage of the code of the OS. A simple example is copy and paste. That functionality comes from the OS. As the OS updates and changes, the software company tries to either update their code to work with the new OS, completely rewrite their code to do the same thing, or toss that feature out if their research shows that such a feature was not being used by that many people and spending money (aka, time) to upgrade it just isn't worth it. So that feature is tossed.

    My guess is that the release version that is best compatible with Windows 7 is no longer available and you might need to get the most recent version of Acrobat DC and you'll need to get a new computer with the OS that can run that program. I'm sure that Windows folks here can better fill you in on the details but simply, your hope of just sliding Acrobat 8 over to you new "older" system may just not work.

    Welcome to the 21st Century!

    Sorry for the news.

    M
    mich81629860Author
    Participant
    September 20, 2018

    Hi Gary

    Thanks for your reply.  I suspect you are correct but before I go and purchase some software that is compatible (and it won't be Adobe cos you can't get any support from them - it's impossible to reach an actual support person), is there no other fix for me?

    I loved my old XP computer as it was so reliable and I had everything working on it hunky dory, but as time went on the various software/OS became unsupported and I am now forced to retire it.  The Windows 7 machine should last me another 1-2 yrs I reckon.

    Yes, I'm a change-phobe.  My philosophy is "if it ain't broke don't fix it".

    If there is no fix or upgrade available at a reasonable cost, do you know of another software that has the functionality of Acrobat v8 that I can investigate (not Adobe)?

    Thanks

    gary_sc
    Community Expert
    gary_scCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    September 20, 2018

    Hi Mich,

    im sure there are many but I am unaware of them. I’ve used Acrobat Pro since (I think) version 3 and I’ve not found any other application that is as reliable and accurate as Acrobat.

    I feel your your pain in regards as to how hard it an be to get help from Adobe (which is partly why I help what I can on these forums) But fortunately there is a MONSTER amount of information on all Adobe products on the web.

    On the other hand, I do not know if you are a business, home user, or what but things in the technology world change much faster than most of us can keep up. If you’re a business and you’re not keeping up, I can assure you, your competition surely are.

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