How to fix broken "Print to AdobePDF" ?

[StephenB427]

Until the last few weeks, from about a year ago with Adobe Acrobat Pro XI on a Win7 Pro 64-bit system, I've been able to "Print to AdobePDF" as a printer (versus "Save As AdobePDF" which continues to work as expected in MS Word 2010, etc.). I registered my product October 8, 2012 and for most of the year everything has worked great!

As others with this problem have described, the Print To AdobePDF (Adobe PDF Converter) seems to be progressing (there is a progress bar on screen) and then it stops with no output at all rather than the old/usual way of opening Acrobat with the new document on-screen).

I have uninstalled/installed the Adobe PDF "printer" (remove device and add a printer) many times drilling down to the proper *.inf file starting with "Use an existing port" for Adobe PDF, Have Disk, browse to AdobePDF.inf, and then use the sixth down Adobe PDF Converter. I have also deleted infcache.1 following another suggested solution and then, yesterday, I uninstalled and reinstalled Acrobat XI Pro with a registry cleaning between uninstalling and reinstalling with jv16 Power Tools. Alas I've been unsuccessful in fixing the problem.

Right now I'm at a complete loss what to try next to fix the broken "Print to AdobePDF". I'd really appreciate any suggestions. Many thanks.

Cheers, Stephen

[Dave ..]

I can no longer reinstall CS6 Acrobat X, below (InDesign installed OK) and cannot readily trace a solution for CS6 context - any suggestions would be much appreciated. TIA

Dave.

----------- Payload: Acrobat Professional 10.0.0.0 {AC76BA86-1033-F400-7760-000000000005} -----------

ERROR: Error 1310.Error writing to file: C:\ProgramData\Adobe\Adobe PDF\Distiller\Startup\example.ps.   Verify that you have access to that directory.

ERROR: Install MSI payload failed with error: 1603 - Fatal error during installation.

MSI Error message: Error 1310.Error writing to file: C:\ProgramData\Adobe\Adobe PDF\Distiller\Startup\example.ps.   Verify that you have access to that directory.

ERROR: Third party payload installer AcroPro.msi failed with exit code: 1603

[Dave ..]

My Acrobat X Pro installation 1310 error has been overcome by running Tweaking.com Windows Repair Tool v3.4.3 (free version) - which amongst other things can reset Windows permissions.

The Print to Adobe PDF problems now seem to be associated with FireFox (currently 40.0.3) rather than IE11.

Dave.

[-__]

I wanted to post what I did to solve my problem.  First, I recently upgraded from Windows 7 to Windows 10.  I am using Adobe Acrobat XI Pro.  I noticed when using MS Access 2013 and trying to print reports to Adobe PDF, I would receive an error message (sorry, I don't remember the exact message) and the Adobe print window would not open.  I was able to print the reports with my HP printer.  I did not have this problem before upgrading to Windows 10 or with any of the other MS Office programs.  At some point, I realized if I would select a different printer and then select Adobe PDF, it worked.  But the extra steps were a pain.  The MS Access reports I was having a problem with were designed to print to Adobe PDF by default.  I opened the reports in design view, went to page setup, and set another printer as the default and saved the report.  Then I repeated the same steps and set Adobe PDF as the default printer for the report and saved it.  Now when I print the report, Adobe PDF works fine.

[Guest]

Hello All,

I have also had this issue recently. This issue was started due to some patch updates sent out by our IT staff. I have no idea what those updates were but my staff has since had intermittent issues with Adobe neglecting to "prompt" for the save which inhibited them from proceeding with the conversion (circle of death). I recently started having the issue on my PC and found the following work-around: when selecting the document to print go to "Printer Properties" and select the option to have Adobe PDF Output go directly to Documents\*.pdf instead of the "Prompt to Adobe PDF filename" option that it defaults to.

To update the setting permanently do the following:

Start - Devices & Printers - Right Click on Adobe PDF - Navigate to "Advanced" tab - select "Printing Defaults" - Select "Documents\*.pdf under Adobe PDF Output - OK - OK - Success.

I have been successful that way only as a workaround. Let me know if any of you find actual resolution.

Cheers,

Marissa

[Guest]

Hello All,

I have also had this issue recently. This issue was started due to some patch updates sent out by our IT staff. I have no idea what those updates were but my staff has since had intermittent issues with Adobe neglecting to "prompt" for the save which inhibited them from proceeding with the conversion (circle of death). I recently started having the issue on my PC and found the following work-around: when selecting the document to print go to "Printer Properties" and select the option to have Adobe PDF Output go directly to Documents\*.pdf instead of the "Prompt to Adobe PDF filename" option that it defaults to.

To update the setting permanently do the following:

Start - Devices & Printers - Right Click on Adobe PDF - Navigate to "Advanced" tab - select "Printing Defaults" - Select "Documents\*.pdf under Adobe PDF Output - OK - OK - Success.

I have been successful that way only as a workaround. Let me know if any of you find actual resolution.

Cheers,

Marissa

[jaaks54]

I too have this problem. The adobe printer can't be loaded and you cannot make a PDF in word. I guess I too will get a third party PDF maker. I don't know which software is the problem although it appears to be Microsoft since the problem started after the latest "upgrade". Frankly, office 2016 is a gigantic bust. If I could revert back to 2013, I would.

[Test Screen Name]

‌if you can't use the Acrobat ribbon, you can undo the last Minctoft Office 2016 update. But that won't Ffect the PDF printer.

[Neil McCubbin]

After being frustrated for months, and reading the massive number of posts, I just found a solution that works for me.  I am running Win10, 64 bit

In IE 11  (Edge)  instead of selecting "Adobe PDF" as my printer, I select "Microsoft Print to PDF"  (second one down in my installation)

Deadly simple.  Why could the Microsoft experts not have sad that?  Perhaps it is a recent sneaky uupdate ???

[genwar49417]

I'm guessing that "Print to Adobe PDF" has problems with long folder/file names. Maybe this has already been discovered ... I didn't read the whole long series of posts.

I've encountered the same problem, on and off, and finally found that the print function works just fine when I change the "Adobe PDF Output Folder" (in printer "Properties") to "My Documents/*.pdf". Otherwise, the print process appears to hang, but I discovered that if I let it "hang" long enough, it'll eventually pop up the "Prompt for Adobe PDF filename" dialog box ... but in that box's "Filename" drop-down, there's a scrambled-up folder location on another one of my networked computers, pointing to a nonexistent folder. I can correct that in that dialog by going up to the "Save in" drop-down and pointing it to the correct folder. Then the print process continues normally with the expected result. After doing that once, it then seems to be able to find the correct folder for itself during subsequent print jobs during that session. (I'm using a Windows XP SP2 machine, with Acrobat 7 Pro)

[rfuller02]

This resolved it for us on Windows 10 with Acrobat X.

Go to %appdata%\Adobe and rename the Acrobat folder to Acrobat.old. Then rename the Adobe PDF folder to Adobe PDF.old

Go to %localappdata%\Adobe and rename the Acrobat folder to Acrobat.old

If you get a message indicating you can't rename one of the folders, you will have to kill the Acrotray process through Task Manager.

Reboot so the Acrotray (distiller) process gets restarted if you stopped it.

[Robert-Oz]

Briefly, this failure to produce a PDF document in Word is caused by an error in the Word document. 

In my case, a graphic that had been replaced with a message "This linked image cannot be displayed .... ".  If I deleted the message box or replaced the image with a non-linked image, it worked perfectly.

I found the error by dividing my 200+ page Word document into half, and tried to PDF each half.  On half failed, so divided that file into half and PDFed each half, and one half  failed.  Once I was down to about a ten-page failed Word file, I paged through, checking each page carefully and there it was.

[garys62957702]

I found that my issue appears to lie with deployed printers, if we add the printer manually via directory, share or locally it works without issue.

Not sure if this will help anyone else

[Ayotunde-MCL]

Dear All,

I experienced the same problem printing to Adobe but I resolved it by making sure that the path to the folder I was saving the Adobe file does not have any special character and it worked.

So, I advise that you save the Adobe file into a folder whose path (including the file name) has no special characters like (, ), <, >, !, etc.  Try it and let me know if it works.  My e-mail is [Moderator: Personal information removed ]

Thank you all.

Ayotunde Sodipe.

[Ayotunde-MCL · Accepted solution]

Dear All,

I experienced the same problem printing to Adobe but I resolved it by making sure that the path to the folder I was saving the Adobe file does not have any special character and it worked.

So, I advise that you save the Adobe file into a folder whose path (including the file name) has no special characters like (, ), <, >, !, etc.  Try it and let me know if it works.  My e-mail is [Moderator: Personal information removed ]

Thank you all.

Ayotunde Sodipe.