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_Dave_Grice_
Participant
August 6, 2008
Question

PDF conversion failed please correct the error and retry

  • August 6, 2008
  • 9 replies
  • 36957 views
PDF conversion failed please correct the error and retry

Please can somebody help........????

I have XP Pro SP2 with Acrobat Professional V8 and Microsoft Office 2003. Acrobat has worked fine until recently, but now, when I try to create a PDF from a Word document within Acrobat, it starts to create and at 10%, I get the above fault message. I also occasionally/rarely get a second message reading "Adobe PDF creation cannot continue because Acrobat is not activated.
Click Retry after activating Acrobat to continue printing.
Click Cancel to quit PDF creation"

If I try to create a PDF from within Word, it gets to around 50%, then the progress indicator disappears with Adobe Acrobat opening up in the background, having no document/pdf showing. If I check the save destination, there is no PDF saved there.

If I try to create a PDF from within Excel, pretty much the same happens.

My product is activated and registered. I've trawled the Forums and can see similar issues, but none the exact same.

I have tried printing a file to the PDF Printer in printer options, this fails also. I have repaired the Acrobat installation and numerous re-starts but to no avail!!

If somebody out there could help me I would be very appreciative, this is driving me insane!!!!!!!

Thanks in advance for taking pity on a tortured soul!!!!

    9 replies

    F
    farhan31302604z6en
    Participant
    February 8, 2025

    It looks like your Acrobat installation may be corrupted or facing compatibility issues. Try running Acrobat as an administrator, updating it, or reinstalling the PDF printer driver. If the issue persists, a workaround is using an online PDF converter.

    In the Philippines, ensuring compatibility is just as important when selecting a mobile network, especially with different prefixes for Smart, Globe, and DITO. 

    JR Boulay
    Community Expert
    JR BoulayCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    February 8, 2025

    16 years later, I guess the OP was impatient for this answer.

    🙂

    Acrobate du PDF, InDesigner et Photoshopographe
    A
    Anonymous
    October 12, 2011

    I have find another an interesting video tutorial and would like to share it with you. It convert Word to PDF file format very easily and effecticely. You may checkout.

    Hope it helps you.

    B
    bobgambill
    Participant
    October 12, 2011

    Might try checking the settings in Adobe Distiller...

    Open Distiller, and check your default setting.

    Go to "settings"

    Then "edit Adobe PDF settings"

    Go to "Standards"

    Check "when no compliant"... it may say CANCEL JOB.

    You can change that to "Continue"... BUT, you may not

    be 100% compliant with the standard you've set just above.

    A
    ARRTrees
    Participant
    April 29, 2011

    Thanks very much for the advice. It helped me to repair my system.

    ARR Trees

    Globe, AZ

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    _Christina_Collins_
    Participant
    March 16, 2009
    Randy, I tried your fix on a box running XP, SP2 with Office XP and am still getting the error message after 10% also.

    Any other suggestions?

    Thanks!
    A
    Anonymous
    May 14, 2009

    I had to clear a few failed attempts from the Adobe printer, and then I followed the advice from the post above yours, and that seemd to solve my issue.

    Win Vista 32

    Acrobat 8 Pro

    _
    _randy_ransier_
    Participant
    January 5, 2009
    Probable Solution: (this worked for me with word 2003 and vista 64)

    go to control panel, printers

    edit the properties on the PDF Printer

    two settings must be set for this to work properly

    1. under the ports tab, adobe pdf cannot be set to lpt1 or com1 or some such port
    it must be set to Documents\*.pdf (near the bottom of the list of ports)
    2. under the advanced tab, dont set spooling. click the little radio button next to "Print Directly to Printer"

    that fixed the problem for me
    good luck
    N
    Niklet21
    Participant
    July 30, 2010

    THANK YOU, Randy!!!  This fix worked and it's all about the PDF printer settings.  I registered for this forum so I could post that I was stumped by this frustrating PDF conversion error for two days, trying everything Adobe support recommended (c'mon adobe!) and in the end it was all about the PDF printer settings.  Thank you for taking the time to post the fix Randy.  You saved me!

    B
    Bill12
    Inspiring
    August 10, 2008
    Try printing to the Adobe PDF printer with print-to-file selected. Then open the file in Distiller and see if you get a PDF. If so, then check for AcroTray running in the background (it is required) - use ctrl-alt-del to check the running tasks. If the Distiller route does not work, then what are the errors pointed out by Distiller when running the file?
    _
    _Dave_Grice_Author
    Participant
    August 7, 2008
    Hi Bill,

    Thanks for your response. Adobe PDF Printer is shown in the printer options, if I select and print a document to it, I get exactly the same message as it fails to print.

    I've tried a remove and re-install of Acrobat, but exactly the same thing happens again.

    Thanks again,

    Dave.
    B
    Bill12
    Inspiring
    August 6, 2008
    Can you print to file with the Adobe PDF printer, then open the file in Acrobat Distiller to complete the conversion. If that works, then look to see if AcroTray is running. If not fix that. It may also be that you need to look at the log of the conversion process (should be in the same folder as the PDF location is to be) and see what failed with Distiller. That is the use of trying the work around -- any Distiller errors will show up as you run Distiller.
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