Issues converting FM2020 doc to PDF

[Scott24846338ewcn]

I've recently converted a FM2020 document to PDF by printing to a PDF printer. Had the following problems and would appreciate recommendations. Thanks so much.

- The document includes a .png image with a transparent background. Although the background appears transparent in FM, in the PDF it is not (surrounded by a white box);

- None of the external hyperlinks in the document are in the PDF. I know I could insert these in the PDF after the conversion but I don't have Acrobat currently and would prefer not to have to take this step.

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

What point version of FM2020 are you running? Have you tried the Publishing route for creating the PDF?

[Scott24846338ewcn]

Sorry for the delay in responding. Been out for a couple days. Running 16.0.5.1096. Had not tried publishing, but when I do I get the following warning: "To execute "Save as PDF" command you must have Acrobat Distiller version 5.05 or higher installed.". I don't think I can install just Acrobat Distiller, although I've tried. Upon confirming the first warning, this one displays: "To execute "Save as PDF" command you must have PDF Job Options defined." Thanks again.

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Is this a new install of FM? Because you should have gotten the headless version of Acrobat as part of your FM installation - enough to create PDFs through printing to the Adobe PDF printer instance, Save As PDF, and Publish to PDF.

[Scott24846338ewcn]

The installation was about a year ago and I'm not the one who did it so not sure of the exact steps taken. Will have to check in with our IT apps guy to see if FM could be reinstalled with this Acrobat option enabled.

[Scott24846338ewcn]

One more question. Can you explain what you mean by "headless?"

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

You don't get a full visible Acrobat UI installed - just enough of the "under the hood" mechanism to make PDFs within FM.

[Winfried Reng]

FrameMaker 2020 and FrameMaker 2022 do not have this headless Distiller. They have an internal PDF generator.

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

For the Save as PDF & Publish routes - is Print to Adobe PDF not supported anymore?

[Winfried Reng]

Save as PDF and Publish use FrameMaker's internal PDF generator.

When you want to print to PostScript, you need a PDF printer from Acrobat or another PDF editor.