2017 release not responding when printing to PDF

[jayaflir]

Hello. I have FrameMaker 2017 (14.0.4.511) running on Windows 10 Enterprise 1803 (17134.885). I don't use FrameMaker every day. Today, I am unable to save as a PDF a 58-page, three-chapter-plus-cover-and-TOC book; FrameMaker stops responding, and Distiller does not start running. I also tried printing it using the Adobe PDF print driver, and that also froze FrameMaker.

When I then tried saving a 14-page, two-chapter-plus-cover-and-TOC as PDF, Distiller ran but the job failed.

Please help.

Thank you.

[jayaflir]

OK, I now appear to be able to save the 14-page book as a PDF.

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Do you have the full version of Acrobat or just the "headless" version that came with FM? Are you able to print anything to the Adobe PDF printer intance outside of FM?

[jayaflir]

I have Acrobat Standard DC 2019.012.20040 and it appears I am unable to print from Word to the Adobe PDF printer.

[jayaflir]

Actually, an earlier FM print job appears to have been holding up the print queue for the Adobe PDF printer.

From Word, I am able to Save as PDF.

[jayaflir]

It looks like I am unable to print anything to the Adobe PDF printer outside of FM. From Word, I see the job spooling in the printer queue for less than a second and then the job disappears, with no file produced.

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Were you able to use Acrobat outside of FM to create a PDF before? If so, then something must have changed. If not, then maybe try uninstalling Acrobat & reinstalling it.

[jayaflir]

Honestly, I can't remember whether I tried. For the past few months, I've been using another technical writing tool (don't ask why I use two...) and I guess it uses a different PDF driver/printer.

Thank you very much for your quick help. I'm about to leave the office for the day and it's a long holiday weekend where I am, so I'll pick this up again next week. Again, thank you.

[jayaflir]

Hello again.

(I pressed Enter and this message was posted - behavior inconsistent with other web-based forms - and am unable to delete this message.)
I hope you or someone else is still available to help me.
I have uninstalled and reinstalled Acrobat DC (Standard), which did not appear to resolve the issues. I am currently in the process of uninstalling and reinstalling FrameMaker, and will report back.

[jayaflir]

Note: https://helpx.adobe.com/il_en/framemaker/kb/framemaker-downloads.html refers readers to https://helpx.adobe.com/il_en/download-install/kb/install-app.html for information about extracting and installing FrameMaker 2017. However, the instructions at https://helpx.adobe.com/il_en/download-install/kb/install-app.html are not accurate for the files available from https://helpx.adobe.com/il_en/framemaker/kb/framemaker-downloads.html.

[jayaflir]

Unfortunately, the Adobe FrameMaker 2017 installer has stopped responding at 99% complete.

[jayaflir]

Eventually, I was able to open FrameMaker 2017 (without stopping the installer), and the installer resumed responding and indicated the installation completed successfully. Unfortunately, re-installing FrameMaker 2017 has not resolved the issue. Please help.

[jayaflir]

I am still able to Save as PDF from Word (which uses the Acrobat PDFMaker).

[Winfried Reng]

Hi,

In your second post you said that you can save as PDF.

Can you describe in more detail what you do and when you cannot create a PDF?

Do you notice this when you Save As PDF? Or also when you print to a PostScript file? When you print to a PostScript file, can you create the PostScript file or do you get a message from FrameMaker? Or do you get a message from Distiller? What's the error message?

Do you notice this with all files (books and single files)? Or only with special files? Even with the FrameMaker templates? With or without graphics displayed?

When Distiller stops on a certain page, is there anything special on this page or on the preceeding/following page? Does Distiller create the PDF, when you hide all graphics (View | Options | Graphics)?

Best regards

Winfried

[jayaflir]

Thank you, Winfried, for picking this up. Those are a lot of questions. I'll answer most of them by writing that FrameMaker stops responding before Distiller opens/starts the job.

[jayaflir]

FrameMaker stops responding before Distiller opens/starts the job when I try to save both books and single files as PDF.

[jayaflir]

So, after something like an hour, the job for a single file resumed and successfully completed.

[jayaflir]

"Do you notice this when you Save As PDF?" Yes.
I haven't yet tried printing to a PostScript file.

[Winfried Reng]

Hi,

1 hour is much too long.

So you used Save As PDF, don't you?

Can you answer also the following questions:

How many pages?

Structured/unstructured?

How many graphics? Type? Size (file size)?

References to other files?

What happens, when you create the PostScript file first and distill the PostScript file? What's the file size of the PostScript file?

Are your files local or on a network?

Best regards

Winfried

[jayaflir]

(I am not pleased with the user experience for this support forum. When I reply and press Enter, the reply is posted. I am unable to format the reply until I post it and then edit it.)

So you used Save As PDF, don't you? - Yes.

Can you answer also the following questions:

How many pages? - Whole book is 58 pages.

Structured/unstructured? - Unstructured, but I noticed that sometimes, in the Windows program bar, "(Structured)" does appear when FM stops responding.

How many graphics? Type? Size (file size)? - Not sure of the exact number. Maybe 20-30, a combination of PNGs, TIFFs, and JPGs. Also not sure of exact sizes, either. (I inherited this and other documents.)

References to other files? - Yes, within the book. When I open one of the chapter files, a message appears regarding unresolved cross-references, but when I Save As PDF, I don't see any of those errors (an error log is not generated).

What happens, when you create the PostScript file first and distill the PostScript file? What's the file size of the PostScript file? - I haven't yet tried that. (I have spent a lot of time trying to resolve this issue, so now I'm trying to do that and work on other projects.)

Are your files local or on a network?

[Winfried Reng]

The forum software is new. There are still lots of discussions. Just use the Reply button of the first post in a thread. Then people get correct e-mails with correct topics. But also the replies to a single post get more features in the next days.

[jayaflir]

OK. Thanks.

[jayaflir]

Also, all files are local.

[jayaflir]

Hello again.

I similar, 57-page book successfully printed to a PostScript file and I was able to successfully publish that to PDF using Distiller.

For the original book that I experienced the issue, the change I made prior to trying to save it as a PDF was adding a new TIFF file. I'll see what happens if I remove that file from the book/chapter.

[jayaflir]

Reducing the file size of that TIFF file did not resolve the issue. For now, I am printing to PostScript and then using Distiller to create PDFs, but I would like to resolve this issue so I can use Save As PDF without having to wait up to an hour. Thank you.