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jheath223
jheath223
Participant
January 21, 2016
Answered

.PST to .PDF conversion problems

  • January 21, 2016
  • 4 replies
  • 17906 views

I am having a serious problem converting .pst files to .pdf's

I am able to successfully convert the .pst file, but the number of items converted is no where near the number of emails!

For example: 

I need to convert a .pst file, so I add it to a new folder in my inbox.  This folder shows as having about 1250 items in it.

I then right click the folder and choose to export to a .pdf fill.

After choosing the location to create the .pdf, I am shown the "Creating Adobe PDF" popup window.

This window shows only about 630 items to convert.

Whats with the miss match?

Without knowing this I cannot confidently tell HR that the pdf contains all emails from the .pst file.

Please help!

Thanks!

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

    The problem is not .PST files, but rather, a known bug in Acrobat for conversion of e-mails to PDF whereby a certain process HTMLtoPDF has a memory leak and simply stops converting to PDF after it runs out of address space. I'll try to get the development team to take the bug out of mothballs and fix it.

            - Dov

    4 replies

    P
    pingo1711
    Participant
    January 18, 2018

    I have the same problem with Adobe DC Pro and it is a pain but I have an all Adobe fix, however its availability may be limited.

    I have an old Windows 8 (now 10) workstation which has Office 2007 and Acrobat 8 Standard installed. It is too slow for modern day-day use, but if I export the email folder(s) (several thousand in a folder is not an issue) that need converted as a PST file and open it in Outlook 2007, the convert folder(s) to PDF operation within Outlook works correctly and the PDF is generated.

    Adobe,

    This "bug" doesn't seem to exist in Acrobat 8 Standard, can you not dig out the source code from that product and utilise it in DC Pro (or is that too obvious a fix).

    Wrightone
    Wrightone
    Participant
    January 18, 2018

    Since this thread is still in use and I came across it today, I thought I would put in what troubleshooting and solution we had. Basically we recently rolled out a new AV solution at work that is a bit more memory intensive than our previous one. After that rollout, some users that right-click and convert emails to PDF (as shown in the previous messages here) are having some issues. Basically, the process is, in Outlook, right-click on the email, and "convert to PDF". If the email has a .docx & a pdf attachment, it comes up with a blank page showing "empty root". If the email has just a single pdf or a single docx, it works fine. It also works fine with a docx and a tif, or docx and an email. However, it fails with a docx & a docx or pdf &pdf.

    We were able to test that if we copy an email locally, then open it and right-click it works. If we are in Outlook and open the email, then click on Adobe and Convert to PDF in the menu, rather than a right-click, it works fine as well.
    Based on what is above with the memory leak, this makes some amount of sense.

    Pingo, with your post you suggest that opening the email on the old computer and software worked. Were you right-clicking at that point or were you clicking on the buttons?

    If anyone is still reading this thread, I'd like to know if the workaround "fixes" the issue for you.

    This particular user that I was working with is on Acrobat XI 11.0.23

    P
    pingo1711
    Participant
    January 19, 2018

    What I was doing - I had a PST file that had about 2500 items in the Inbox folder only. On my normal workstation which has Office 2016 and Acrobat DC Pro, selecting "ACROBAT" from the File menu of Outlook and choosing "Convert Selected Folders", ticking this Inbox only and proceeding with the conversion would result in a failure after about 450 or so emails.

    If I then took that same PST file, copied it over to the old workstation with Office 2007/Acrobat 8 Standard and performed the same task by the same method, it would work perfectly and create the PDF with all 2500 items in it and properly indexed.

    The highest number of items I have tried this with was on a PST with over 7000 items - same result - DC Pro fails and 8 Standard works.

    Right clicking an individual email always works on both setups and creates a single email PDF. I have never found any issues with the "right-click and convert" method.

    J
    jbeckmeyer
    Participant
    February 22, 2017

    A year and a month later.... still no fix.  I ran into this issue today and found this thread, hopeful for a solution.  All I found was Adobe neglect.

    My export ran for hours, and locked up with only 10-15% remaining.  It's beyond frustrating to lose hours worth of work, but insult is added to injury when you find out it's a known issue and had already been *collecting dust* when the OP started this thread over a year ago.

    It's a shame that third parties can develop better applications for Adobe technologies than Adobe.  Time to take my software budget elsewhere.

    Dov Isaacs
    Dov IsaacsCorrect answer
    Legend
    January 21, 2016

    The problem is not .PST files, but rather, a known bug in Acrobat for conversion of e-mails to PDF whereby a certain process HTMLtoPDF has a memory leak and simply stops converting to PDF after it runs out of address space. I'll try to get the development team to take the bug out of mothballs and fix it.

            - Dov

    - Dov Isaacs, former Adobe Principal Scientist (April 30, 1990 - May 30, 2021)
    Anthony_Adinolfi___AIPNW
    Anthony_Adinolfi___AIPNW
    Participant
    December 27, 2016

    Dov,

    I'm aware of the memory leak and we're now using alternatives to Adobe Acrobat, but it's been a year since your post (and two years since your original post on this issue) and the dev team still hasn't resolved the issue even though a new product has rolled out. This is ridiculous. If the feature doesn't work, why bother having the contextual menu in the first place?

    This long term memory leak issue has forced us to abandon using Adobe Acrobat when exporting e-mail for our clients and we're contemplating abandoning Adobe all-together because bugs (like this one) sit for years without resolution. Why would we continue to pay for our Acrobat Pro DC licenses when we can't use simple conversion features

    AadeshSingh ,

    Perhaps read the post in full before commenting. "I need to convert a .pst file, so I add it to a new folder in my inbox. This folder shows as having about 1250 items in it. I then right click the folder and choose to export to a .pdf file." Pretty clear, no? Especially given he's describing a well known bug?

    The user isn't converting a .PST. He imports the .PST into Outlook and then attempts to convert the e-mail folders to .PDF. The problem being that Adobe has failed to address this memory leak through multiple versions of the Acrobat product.

    #Frustrated

    AadeshSingh
    AadeshSingh
    Participating Frequently
    January 21, 2016

    Hi jheath223,

    .pst is not a supported file format for PDF conversion Supported file formats | Adobe Acrobat, Reader.

    Regards,
    Aadesh

    jheath223
    jheath223Author
    Participant
    January 21, 2016

    So, I am not exactly converting a .pst, I am converting a the entire contents(emails) from an outlook folder to a .pdf.

    There is a special adobe plugin that manages this process, and adds an adobe ribbon to Outlook.

    I am using outlook2013, see below screenshot of choosing to convert the folder.

                                 

    So, when I click that option, it asks for a location to create the pdf, then it starts the conversion.

    The conversion only has about half the number of items in the folder, that is my problem.

    I find it hard to believe that this is normal, or that it is not supported by adobe.. I think my original statement may have been misleading.

    Any thoughts?

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