2017 release not responding when printing to PDF

Report · Oct 10, 2019

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.

Report · Oct 15, 2019

Unfortunately, printing this 58-page book to a PostScript has caused FM to stop responding (on page 6 of one of the chapters). After FM resumes responding, I'll see what's on page 6.

Report · Oct 15, 2019

Hi,

And what happens, when you hide all graphics (View | Options)? Is everything much faster?

Do you have issues only with this single FrameMaker file or also with others?

Does the printing to a PostScript file also take such long? What's the file size of this PostScript file?

Best regards

Winfried

Report · Oct 15, 2019

And what happens, when you hide all graphics (View | Options)? Is everything much faster? - I haven't yet tried that.

Do you have issues only with this single FrameMaker file or also with others? - As mentioned above, another, similar book successfully prints to a PostScript file and then to PDF using Distiller.

Does the printing to a PostScript file also take such long? - Printing to a PostScript file doesn't take as long as Saving As PDF, but it does take at least a few minutes.

What's the file size of this PostScript file? - The original, 58-page book, without an Adobe Illustrator file on page 6 of chapter 1 that I thought might be causing the issue: 178 MB (wow). The other, similar, 57-page book: 30 MB.

Report · Oct 15, 2019

And what happens, when you hide all graphics (View | Options)? Is everything much faster? - Yes, everything is much faster.

Report · Oct 15, 2019

Hi,

So it seems that you only have issues with a single book. And in this problem book there is a problem Illustrator file. When you remove only this file, can you create the PDF?

How do you import the Illustrator file? Referenced? As AI or EPS? When AI, please save as EPS (without any Illustrator specifics) and then import this EPS instead.

The file size of your PostScript file isn't a problem. I have a catalogue with a PostScript files or more than 1 GB.

Best regards

Winfried

Report · Oct 15, 2019

So it seems that you only have issues with a single book. - This is not true. The other, similar, 57-page book took over an hour to Save As PDF.

And in this problem book there is a problem Illustrator file. When you remove only this file, can you create the PDF? - This is not true. Removing the AI file did not resolve the issue.

How do you import the Illustrator file? Referenced? As AI or EPS? When AI, please save as EPS (without any Illustrator specifics) and then import this EPS instead. - I believe it is copied, not referenced. I'll try saving as EPS (without any Iullustrator specifics.)

The file size of your PostScript file isn't a problem. I have a catalogue with a PostScript files or more than 1 GB. - Got it. Thanks.

Report · Oct 15, 2019

The current status is:

Unless I hide all graphics, Save As PDF does not work within about an hour time frame for two of my 60-ish page books. Changing an AI graphic or the TIFF graphic recently added does not significantly change this.
Printing to PostScript works, but can still take more than an hour.

Report · Oct 15, 2019

Hi,

I had not encountered any file which took an hour to print to a PostScript file or Save As PDF. Even my 1 GB PostScript files took 15 to 20 minutes.

Generally EPS is the safest format.

When this does not work, then I assume that your graphics are very special.

You can also convert your TIF file to EPS and test this. Or try other formats.

What I had not asked yet: You do not have CMYK activated, don't you?

When you print to a PostScript file, what's the file size when you show your graphics?

When you do not have such special graphics files, you can continue to Save As PDF. When you encounter any issues, you know that you can also print to PostScript. And that it might take a long time.

Best regards

Winfried

Report · Oct 15, 2019

Thank you, again Winfried, for your time and effort to help. Until last week, I was able to save this and other similar books fine as PDF with some "not responding" time, but not like what I began to experience last week. The only change I made was adding a paragraph of text and one TIFF file to that one chapter in that one book. That in and of itself should not have caused such a significant increase in Save As PDF time. Presumably, something else happened on my computer. For example, my technical support representative instructed me to change the Windows OS edition from Pro to Enterprise a few weeks ago. Maybe that is affecting the Save As PDF publishing... Thanks, again.

Report · Oct 15, 2019

I'm wondering if there's a corrupt graphic in your file.

My first reaction is to try performing a MIF wash of all the files in the book, if you haven't done so already. Adobe has a utility that will do that for you, but you have to install it first. (Honestly, I don't know why they don't just add it to the File > Utilties menu, it's too useful not to have it as part of the program right out of the box.)

If that doesn't solve the problem, I'd use the "divide and conquer" method. Your book is fairly short, so I'd start by printing each file separately as a PDF (rather than the entire book) to find out if it's only one file causing the issue. Once (if?) you can narrow it down to one file, you then print it out in halves. That is, if it's 10 pages long, print pages 1-5 and then 6-10 to see if the issue crops up in both sections or just one. Repeat until you can narrow it down to one page. If there's one or more graphics on that page, see what happens when you remove them. If, as I suspect, it's a corrupt graphic, then recreating it should solve the issue.

Report · Oct 15, 2019

Thank you, linsims, for your time and effort to help. While I have worked with FrameMaker on and off over the last 10-11 years, I don't use it every day and even right now, it is only one of the two primary tools I use. Until last week, I was able to save this and other similar books fine as PDF with some "not responding" time, but not like what I began to experience last week. (I don't even know or remember exactly what a MIF wash is.) Thanks, again, and I'll hopefully be able to try your suggestions.

Report · Oct 15, 2019

A MIF wash is a jargon term that means that saving the Frame file to MIF (maker interchange format), closing the Frame file, opening the MIF file in Frame, and resaving the MIF file to FM format. It is a good way to rid the binary file of a lot of inadvertent corruptions. The utility I told you about automates the process. So if something in the file is corrupted, performing a MIF wash may be all you need to do. If it is a corrupt graphic, however, you'll need to track down which graphic it is, and that's what the rest of what I told you addresses.

Report · Oct 15, 2019

Cool. Thanks, again, linsims, for your time and effort.

At the same time, the books should be publishing the same as they did up until last week. Therefore, if the MIF wash doesn't resolve this issue, I hope an Adobe Support representative will help me resolve it. I only now realized that you and Winfried are Adobe Community Professionals, which might mean that you are not on the Adobe Support team.

Report · Oct 15, 2019

My gut instinct is that the issue is not being caused by one particular graphic (as evidenced by changing the graphic on page 6 of chapter 1 not affecting the issue). I believe FM 2017 is simply not working properly with my current Windows OS installation/updates.

Report · Oct 15, 2019

Or, in other words, I see no reason for me to spend any more time investigating the graphics in this book considering the relatively small change I made since being able to relatively quickly save this book as a PDF and not being able to do so.

Report · Oct 16, 2019

Current status: I performed a MIF wash and it now takes about 10 minutes to save this particular book as a PDF. Not great, but certainly better than yesterday (Tuesday) and last week. Thank you, linsims.

I also sent an email to open a ticket with Adobe Support.

Again, thank you very much for all of your time and effort.

Report · Oct 16, 2019

If it's still taking that long, I would suggest doing the second part also, if only to determine which file(s) is causing the issue.

Report · Oct 16, 2019

Thanks again, linsims.

Report · Oct 16, 2019

Yes @jaya56227078 - these are primarily user-to-user forums.

Report · Oct 16, 2019

Current status: Patting myself on the back, while also feeling a little stupid.

This morning, on my way to work, it dawned on me that my company has a subscription for me to use FrameMaker and that I should be able to upgrade from FrameMaker 2017 to FrameMaker 2019. I did, and I can now save this particular book as a PDF much more quickly than I ever have.

Again, thank you all for your time and effort.