Testing print to PDF, and getting an error

[Eli-zabelle]

So I'm testing one of my forms on another computer as a person who wouldn't have an Adobe PDF printer, who would need a PDF printer to print only the fields that have been filled, who downloads and installs a popular one such as "CutePDF writer", and then I tested..

After I printed and created a document, I opened it and got two blank pages with this error message on the second :

ERROR: undefined

OFFENDING COMMAND: eexec

STACK:

/quit

-dictionary-

-mark

Can someone say why?

Thank you.

[Joel Geraci]

What are you trying to accomplish? CutePDF may be popular but it's support for the wide variety of PDF functionality is not exactly robust.

[Eli-zabelle]

I'm just putting myself in the shoes of a person who wants to use an Acrobat form on their computer with Reader, fills it, wants to print it in PDF instead of on their physical printer in order to mail it to other people (without the form buttons, checkbox, etc.)

I don't know what this random person is going to use, it is a test. I just want to know what does it mean if she runs into this error?

[Joel Geraci]

They just need to save the form. There's no need to print from PDF back to PDF; that's ALWAYS problematic. You can add a button to "lock" the form which would turn the fields to be read-only and then hide itself as well as the other buttons.

[Eli-zabelle]

Yes I can do that. Thank you.

[Karl Heinz Kremer]

The error is caused by Ghostscript (which is the PS to PDF converter that CutePDF uses) cannot deal with something in your document. Is it possible that your form is protected? In that case, any "good" converter should reject converting such a document to PDF again, because that would amount to removing the protection from the original PDF file. If that's not it, you will have to get in touch with the makers of CutePDF to find out what exactly is causing this error.

[Eli-zabelle]

Thank you, it makes sense. Yes it is protected.  Foxit printed it just fine though.

[gkaiseril]

As noted not all PDF processing programs respect or comply with the full PDF standard. This lack of compliance could cause some issues for some users in their use and expectations of the PDF standard. Users place security on PDFs for many reasons and if that reason is to prevent tampering then Foxit might not be the tool you or your users want to use or it is the tool you want to use.

[Eli-zabelle]

Actually, I was hoping for the form to show the same features as if it was printed on a physical printer.  I have a long series of fields that display.noPrint based on if a value was entered or not. This is meant to work when you print, and not when you save.

Printing to pdf is used alot in an office. When I use Adobe PDF printer it comes out like a charm... but it isn't included with Reader.  So I tested how it would come out with other PDF printers. (Cute PDF is like everywhere in offices)

I think it would have been more user friendly to just be able to print the result of the form rather than push yet another button to lock and hide everything.

Thank you all for your replies.

[Joel Geraci]

Ok - So if you MUST print to PDF, don't use CutePDF, the Microsoft Print to PDF printer and the Mac save as PDF will do a far better job than CutePDF. But... obviously, you're not going to be able to completely control what your user has. You REALLY, REALLY, need to rethink your solution if you want to have any hope of getting any degree of consistency in the output.

J-

[Eli-zabelle]

Well I will make both a "Print" button and a "Save to send" button available, with all the items you first suggested. Now if that's not enough I'll create a "Fax to" button as well and maybe a "Make a movie" button  

[Joel Geraci]

I believe you forgot the animated GIF button and the Post to Facebook button