FM12 (at last!), Acrobat X Pro … and log files?

Report · Aug 31, 2015

Today, only fourteen months after placing the original order, End User Support showed up and let me run the FrameMaker 12 installer. Because I already have Acrobat X, I watched the dialogues very carefully for any sign of a [ ] do not install PDF Creator and saw nothing. Following advice in an earlier thread, I also took a look at the Control Panel: no PDF Creator listed there.

Then I tried Save as .pdf – failed, with the message Could not open the file {name of source file}.LOG

Any ideas on what's wrong? permissions? but I can open an editor and save a text file to the location where Acrobat says the .log cannot be saved.

Thanks in advance for any help! I really am quite looking forward to getting to work with the new FM …

Report · Aug 31, 2015

It would have been hiding in the expanded options for installing FM - it's not obvious at first glance & only when you tell it to show all the component parts to be installed will you see it (theoretically disabled since you already had Acrobat). Did you also get all the updates to FM12 installed too (you should be at 12.0.4.445)? What happens if you print to the Adobe PDF printer instance?

Report · Sep 01, 2015

12.0.0.329 … can't apply updates until I find one of the few "unrestricted" network connections (at least, that's my take on "The update server is not responding. The server might be offline temporarily, or the Internet or firewall settings may be incorrect.")

as for printing to the Adobe PDF printer, with Standard as job options, this yields

Adobe PDF Settings file read error in : C:\ProgramData\Adobe\Adobe PDF\Settings\Standard.joboptions

Report · Sep 01, 2015

You could try - http://www.adobe.com/support/robohelp/downloads.html

Report · Sep 01, 2015

I did, but I'm nowhere near Robohelp…

what I tried to post yesterday, though it seems some intervening software, hardware, network or other snafu intervened, is that:

the error message from Print as pdf refers to "file read error in C:\ProgramData\Adobe\Adobe PDF\Settings\Standard.joboptions"
the actual location of the joboptions files on my laptop is C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Acrobat 10.0\Acrobat\Settings

I'll move this question to the Acrobat forum, though if I get an answer I'll add it here for completeness.

Report · Sep 02, 2015

Sorry, too many threads – I meant here - http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/product.jsp?product=22&platform=Windows

Yes, I know there’s a way to tell Acrobat which joboptions file you wish to use & where to find it, but I’ve never needed to switch them around, so checking out the Acrobat forum is probably the best. You could search in the FM forum for “joboptions” & probably find some post by Arnis that describes where they’re set.

Report · Sep 02, 2015

Just in a narrative, over-the-hedge sort of way … I can now mention that the .joboptions files:

show up in the expected location if I search with the Windows file-explorer
show up in the expected location if I check the folder properties
do not show up if I simply view the contents of the folder
do not show up if I try and select them via the Distiller settings

Time to roll up my sleeves and try for some human-to-human support from Adobe … except that their helpdesk hours are posted as 0900 - 1700 GMT, which means there's nothing to be done until 1100 local time. I think I'll escape to XML Mind for a couple of hours :-}

Report · Sep 03, 2015

After a bout of chat support, Adobe are suggesting I uninstall and reinstall; discreet silence when I asked "is there any way we can actually check whether or not the PDF Creator has been installed?"

I proceeded very carefully, looking under every stone for the magic "do not install PDF Creator" bean, and found it by following the instructions (now, who ever reads those?) and clicking on the name Adobe FrameMaker 12. A little alarming that clearing the checkbox for Adobe PDF Creation also cleared the nearest checkbox for FM, but it didn't mean it. Last summer's version of FM12 is now installed, without the PDF Creator: and I still can't create a .pdf, so the next step is to go home – out of reach of corporate proxies, firewalls and other gremlins – and apply the patches. (one by one and in the right order, natch)

[ps] had a fine time with XML Mind … pasting in tables from FM (and even Word) and seeing them instantly transformed into CALS is very satisfying

Report · Sep 03, 2015

The following message thread describes where to look to be sure the PDF

Creation add-on does not install:

https://forums.adobe.com/message/5927477#5927477

Report · Sep 03, 2015

For the sake of others who may find themselves in the same situation :-}

click on Adobe FrameMaker (not the checkbox) at the lefthand side
this displays the two checkboxes at the righthand side
deselect (uncheck) the Adobe PDF Creation checkbox
this helpfully deselects the FrameMaker checkbox as well, but don't worry – just click [Install]

Good luck!

Report · Sep 15, 2015

It's a mystery … but I took my laptop to the in-house support team yesterday and it came back cured =8-} I enquired, naturally, what they had done to solve the problem, and they said they had just corrected the only thing they spotted as being odd: the localisation settings. I don't begin to imagine how this can have any impact on write access, but I am deeply pleased to report that both Save as … and Print to … now work correctly.

Now to turn off the keyboard shortcut for "switch language settings", because it clashes with an Illustrator shortcut most vexatiously.

Report · Sep 07, 2015

FrameMaker now:

reinstalled, without PDF Creator
patched to 12.0.4.445, using the Help > Updates option while the firewall was looking the other way

.pdf creation still fails

Save as says 'Could not open the file {path/filename.LOG}'
Print to .pdf says "Adobe PDF Settings file read error in : C:\ProgramData\Adobe\Adobe PDF\Settings\Standard.joboptions", which is sort of reasonable given that the joboptions files have been installed in C:\ProgramData\Adobe\Adobe\Extras

Back to Adobe Support, when they deign to come on line: 0900 - 1700 GMT, according to the site, ignoring Summer Time and the Continent just as superbly as if they were British :-}

Report · Sep 07, 2015

long support chat, repeating myself (out of necessity) several times … latest, explicit, confirmed advice: uninstall FM12, reinstall FM12 with PDF Creator, install Acrobat Pro DC.
To increase my levels of annoyance, they have once again sent the transcript to the wrong address: not just a private address that is nothing to do with the corporate installation we're trying to troubleshoot, but also an address whose vigilant mail-server rejects incoming mails from liveperson.com – this after I had (twice) asked them to send to the transcript to my work address and seen them say OK.
Icing on the cake, Adobe Local Time :-}

This bunny is not at all happy :-{

Report · Sep 07, 2015

Any way you slice it, SaveAsPDF from FM is still a kludge until FM gets the ability to natively generate the PDFs like other Adobe apps.

Arnis Gubins, 2009 …