Can't Save As PDF in 7.2 after upgrade to 9.0

[Gay_Alson]

Hello again, Framers,

In 7.2 we routinely used Save As PDF without problem. Now that we also have FM 9 on our systems, however, it appears that the newer Distiller overwrote the older one (the one that worked well with 7.2) because now when trying to Save As PDF (in FM 7.2), we often have problems. It all seems very random and we are at a loss as to understand.what is happening, why, or how to fix it. 

The symptom is a FrameMaker error saying "Can't launch Acrobat Distiller to create a PDF file."

• Double-clicking acro.exe won't open Distiller -- nothing happens. (Can't open acrodist.exe or acrotray.exe under any circumstances.)
• Printing to .ps and double-clicking the .ps file sometimes works, sometimes not.
• Deleting the .tps files and others backups sometimes works, sometimes not.
• Retrying Save As PDF multiple times sometimes works, sometimes not.

We three tech writers have similar setups: We're using XP, have all the latest FM patches, plenty of RAM, etc.

I hope the answer isn't "get rid of 7.2 and use only 9.0" -- our deadlines are such that it's hard to work only in the new version. The UI is different and some functionality is different, so the learning curve will take at least a bit of time.

Could it be as simple as having MIS re-install the 7.2 version of Distiller? Although we specifically requested they leave FrameMaker 7.2 when installing 9.0, we didn't think to mention Distiller, which was apparently overwritten.

If anyone has any experience with this issue, your advice is most welcome.

TIA,

Gay Alson

[Arnis Gubins]

Gay,

The older Distiller/Acrobat version should have been un-installed and cleaned-out first. Get the CS4Clean utility at (http://www.adobe.com/support/contact/cs4clean.html) and clean up the machines by removing any traces of Acrobat & Distiller ferom the Registry. Then re-install the current version.

[Mike Wickham]

Adobe has warned against having more than one version total of Adobe

Reader, Adobe Acrobat, or the stripped-down version of Distiller that comes

with FrameMaker on a single system. In other words, pick ONE and only one.

The rest should all be uninstalled. They can conflict with each other. You

may have to uninstall all and then reinstall only the one you want. (It

might be possible to have both FM's Distiller 9 and Reader 9 on the same

system. I'm not sure.)

There is no reason that you cannot have FrameMaker 7.2 and FrameMaker 9.0 on

the same system—though I seem to recall that they look for the Distiller job

options in different places. So you may have to copy your .joboptions files

to a different location to use Acrobat 9.0 or FM's Distiller 9.0 with FM

7.2. Whichever FM version you install last will be the one Windows will open

when you double-click a .FM file in Windows Explorer.

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Reader 9 & Distiller 9 can work on the same machine - working for me on my XP SP3 workstation

[Gay_Alson]

Thanks, Jeff, but it doesn't really surprise me that Reader 9 and Distiller 9 can work on the same machine. Actually, I would expect that.

Our problem is that we can no longer reliably compile our PDFs after installing FM 9 on systems where we kept our FM 7.2 installs. It's very hit-and-miss. Tried the suggestion of copying over joboptions and it seemed to work, but turned out to be another sometimes-yes-sometimes-no situation. When I get out from under this deadline, I'm going to try Arnis' suggestion of a cleanup utility. Right now I'm just anxious to migrate 100% to FM 9 and get rid of 7.2 entirely. Much as I like it, the Distiller problems are just too great a headache.

Thanks again to those of you who responded!

Gay

[MichaelKazlow · Accepted solution]

If you are having Save As PDF issues, you can always go back to the reliable, Print to Adobe PDF. It works.

[Gay_Alson]

Hmmmmmmm. Adobe PDF has long been my default printer, and I would have bet my life and virtue that I had tried printing to the Adobe PDF printer and still experienced these (sporadic) problems. I definitely tried printing to postscript, as that was always my ironclad solution for PDF problems. As I mentioned, we can't even OPEN acrodist.exe, which indicates a problem *somewhere*.

However, and be all that as it may, I just did another 7.2 test, tried saving as PDF on a problem book, it displayed the FM message "Can't launch Acrobat Distiller to create a PDF file" so I did a Print Book to the Adobe PDF printer and I knew instantly it was working, because there was a "Creating Adobe PDF" progress window that appeared, and the little red Distiller icon began whirling in my system tray.

These PDF problems have been intermittent and not reliably reproducible, so I am not going to do the Dance of Joy quite yet. As I say, it makes NO sense to me that I wouldn't have tried this along with everything else I tried. But I will promise to use this method first from now on and advise my co-workers to do the same. I will report back one way or the other.

In the meantime, thank you ALL again for your helpful suggestions; this group is worth its weight in gold.

Gay

[Gay_Alson]

Thanks both Arnis and Mike --

Interesting suggestions from both of you.

Arnis, we're putting the cleanup utility on the back burner for the moment, since in our company, we can get in trouble using third-party software. However, it's good to know about this utility and we will use if it we have to. (Occcasionally we are forced to put our careers on the line for issues like this...)

Mike, we created a folder called "PDFSettings" in the 7.2 "fminit" folder and copied over the six joboptions files from 9.0.  Rebooted, rePDFed and voila, that worked. (Mind you, we can't say for sure that's what worked, because as I said in my original post, the simple act of rebooting "sometimes works, sometimes not...")

Eventually this problem will go away by itself because eventually we will get rid of 7.2 -- it's only deadline time-crunches that have made us reluctant to jump fully-clothed into 9.0...

I really appreciate the two of you taking your time to offer suggestions and help. I can't imagine life in the FrameMaker world without you!

Cheers,

Gay