Cannot create pdf from Word file, after Win10 1809 upgrade

[ddelo]

Environment: Clean install of

• Windows 10 Pro 64-bit, v. 1809 Build 17763.195
• Office 2016 Pro Plus 64-bit, v. 16.0.4738.1000
• Acrobat Pro 2017 (Classic Track), v. 17.011.30110

Problem description:

Acrobat PDFMaker Office COM Add-in is enabled in Word. ACROBAT tab is visible in the ribbon, but all of its options are disabled. Word cannot create pdf, but worse than that, it cannot save any type of file. 

Once the add-in in Word is disabled, the ACROBAT tab as it supposed vanishes, pdf cannot be created, but at least Word can save files.

Moreover, regardless of the Acrobat PDFMaker add-in  status in Word (i.e enabled or disabled), when right clicking on any Word document and selecting convert to pdf, the pdf is not created and I get an error message “Unable to open the document. Please check if you have read permission for the file”, which apparently is not the case, as I’m the owner of the file with Full access.

It’s worth noting that this behavior applies only to Word 2016. Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook work seamlessly.

Steps taken, without success, in resolving the issue, in that sequence:

1. Repair of Office 2016
2. Repair of Acrobat 2017
3. Created new user account (both Standard and Administrator) and tested functionality
4. Deleted all account-specific temporary files in %localappdata%\temp folder
5. Re-created the account-specific Adobe key in the Windows registry, by removing registry key HKCU\Software\Adobe
6. Repair Install of Windows 10, with in-place Upgrade

Any help will be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance. Dimitri

[MichaelKazlow]

Try uninstalling Acrobat. Run the cleaner tool. https://labs.adobe.com/downloads/acrobatcleaner.html?PID=5140752 Then reinstall Acrobat.

[ddelo]

Hi Michael and thank you for the suggestion, but I'm afraid it will not do any good.

The reason is that every step taken to resolve the problem, was taken after a system image restore....i.e. before installing Acrobat, I had taken a complete system image, with Macrium Reflect, and I was restoring it, before reinstalling Acrobat in a clean system and trying each one of the above described steps. ( and, Yes I restored the system image 6 times... )

In my opinion, this seems to be a misalignment between Word and Acrobat's PDFMaker, which was caused after Microsoft changed something in their notorious 1809 October Update. But since I can't be sure, I thought that it would be a good idea to ask the Adobe experts, in the forum, in case somebody had faced and resolved a similar issue.

[ddelo]

Maybe Mr. Dov Isaacs could give his expert opinion, on that.

[Dov Isaacs]

Since my name was brought up …

Quite frankly, there is nothing that we have heard about in terms of a general problem in this area with the software components listed. Windows 10 1809 update is mentioned. Did this problem occur prior to updating Windows 10 to the 1809 update? If it didn't, the problem may in fact be associated with Windows OneDrive. The Windows 10 1809 update did seriously mess up many users with OneDrive activated, depending upon what directories were included in OneDrive. If you are saving to a directory associated with OneDrive, see what happens if you store the files elsewhere other than in a OneDrive associated directory.

          - Dov

[ddelo]

First of all, my warmest wishes for a Happy and Prosperous New Year and many thanks for your response.

The problem was not present in 1803. It started after upgrading to 1809. That was the main reason I clean installed 1809, to resolve this issue.

As for OneDrive, after clean installing 1809, I (as always) disable it using the available to Windows 10 Pro GPO. So unless it did something before I disabled it, I never used it to store files, and certainly not to save files from within Word 2016.

Besides that, as mentioned in my first post, regardless of the Acrobat PDFMaker add-in status in Word (i.e enabled or disabled), when right clicking on any Word document and selecting convert to pdf, the pdf is not created and I get an error message “Unable to open the document. Please check if you have read permission for the file”, which apparently is not the case, as I’m the owner of the file with Full access.

And a final note. When the add-in is enabled in Word 2016, Word cannot save at all, to any directory, either associated with OneDrive or not. After disabling it, at least Word can save.

Dimitri

[Dov Isaacs]

Dimitri,

You've pretty much covered all the bases that I can think of. Something more serious is going on that someone in our Acrobat engineering group directly associated with the PDFMaker plug-in would need to be able to look at and would probably need to be able to work with you with a remote hook-in to see what's going on since this isn't a known issue (so far). Contact Adobe Support by phone and indicate that I (an Adobe employee) directed you to them. It may require some call backs to get the right folks involved. If you have any issues, please contact me directly via a private message on the forums.

Very sorry for all the aggravation and inconvenience this is causing.

          - Dov

[ddelo]

Dear Dov,

Thanks a lot for your time and effort. And I'm afraid that is a known issue now!

As for your suggestion, I'll give a try, with Adobe Support but this is a business laptop that the issue appeared on and I don't believe the company IT will allow anyone but them, to remotely access it....standard company policy, you see.

So I'm afraid I'll have to wait for a resolution from Microsoft, most likely, as this does not seem to be an Adobe issue, but a Microsoft Word one, with COM addins in general. Other people have mentioned similar problems in the MS forums for other COM addins.

Don't forget that the Redmond boys have an excellent track in messing things up. The last one I remember was the otf printing issue, with Word, which they finally solved a couple of months ago.

Again my greatest thanks for your support and if something comes to your attention regarding this issue, please take a minute to post back.

Take care.

Dimitri

[Dov Isaacs]

Dimitri,

Yup, it is now known.

One other idea …

Do you know how Office was actually installed (at least initially) on your system? There is a big difference between installing Office as a standard application versus licensing and installing via the Microsoft App Store. In the latter case, there have been all sorts of strange issues with regards to Microsoft trying to protect certain application directories and interfering with the manor in which third party plug-ins work. If installed via the store, we would like to know that.

          - Dov

[ddelo]

Dov,

Office was installed via a company VLK ISO. Nothing to do with MS App store.

The weirdest thing is that PDFMaker works flawlessly, in Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook.

It's just Word that is messed up.

And as I said, I'm not alone, in this one.

As I'm an active member in the TenForums, I just saw that post, from someone with the

same problem, but with Word 2019. The screenshot you see from Word, in this post,

is exactly the same as mine, except that mine is in Word 2016 en-us

[Dov Isaacs]

Mumble, mumble, mumble.

OK. We'll be on the lookout for any similar or related reports.

          - Dov

[Dov Isaacs]

BTW, Office 2019 is now out. If you are licensed for that, I'd be interested in whether after uninstalling Office 2016 and doing an Office 2019 install, you have the same issue.

Also the Office 2016 VLK ISO may have a different installer than the normal Office 2016 or Office 365 installers. Hmmm, yet another variable.

          - Dov

[ddelo]

I don't know about the licensing of Office 2019, but I know for fact that even if it is licensed, there is no way the company will proceed with installation of 2019, not before at least 6 months from release. As you very well know, big companies (or small ones for that reason) do not beta-test MS products!

If you can take a look at the link I posted from Tenforums, this is from an Office 2019 installation, with the same problem.

Now I regret to say, that I don't know the difference between VLK ISO and normal Office 2016 installers. I'm sorry but I can't offer more info on that.

Dimitri

[ddelo · Accepted solution]

Dov Isaacs​ and anybody facing the problem.

The problem in version 1809, as expected, was not with PDFMaker, but with the regional settings (culture) used.

I was using en-150 (English Europe)!

Users with special Windows regional settings (“UserCustomCulture”), need to change these settings to a “FrameworkCulture”.

There are several “UserCustomCulture” in Windows 10, to be precise 640 of them. Some examples of these “UserCustomCulture” are :

English (Europe), English (Austria), English (Bahamas), English (Cyprus), English (Germany), English (Netherlands), French (Morocco), German (Belgium), Greek (Cyprus), Russian (Ukraine), Spanish (United States), Spanish (Latin America) etc.

Examples of "FrameworkCulture" are:

English (United States), English (United Kingdom), English (Ireland), French (France), German (Germany), Greek (Greece), Italian (Italy), Spanish (Spain) etc.

To resolve the issue find a suitable FrameworkCulture and use it.

To get list of available "FrameworkCulture", in PowerShell type the following command:

[System.Globalization.CultureInfo]::GetCultures([System.Globalization.CultureTypes]::AllCultures) | where Culturetypes -Match 'FrameworkCultures' | select LCID, KeyboardLayoutId, Name, DisplayName | Sort DisplayName | FT -AutoSize

Check the long list that will be produced and make a note of the culture that suits your needs.

Then go to Control Panel > Region > Formats tab and under Format choose the “FrameworkCulture” you selected from the previous PowerShell command.

Choose Apply and reboot.

BTW, this will also take care of other issues, like crash of Outlook when trying to import/export and inability to record macros or add ActiveX controls.

Dimitri