Print FM to Acrobat with specific Initial View Properties by default

[Kaalki2]

Some time ago, I managed to arrange things so that when I print to Acrobat from FrameMaker, the resulting PDF gets created with the Navigation Tab defaulting to "Bookmarks Panel and Page" on the Initial View Tab of the document properties. I love this. It saves me the time of going to the file properties and changing the Initial View setting each and every time.

My problem is that now I can't remember or figure out how I did it.

Here are some things I can tell you (all of which lead me to believe that it's a setting somewhere in the specific FM file(s)):

• When I set it up, I was using FM 12 and Acrobat (XI maybe?) on a different computer from the one I am using now. I am now using FM(2015 edition) and Acrobat DC.
• It only works when printing from FM (not from Word or any other program).
• It works when printing book files and individual files.
• It seems to only work with my existing files. If  I create a new file "from scratch" it doesn't work (I almost always create new files either by save-as from another file or by creating a new file and importing all formats from an existing file).
• It works with any PDF job options.

Any ideas what sort of magic I must have performed to make this work?

[Barb Binder · Accepted solution]

In Fm 2015, use File > Save as PDF. Give it a name and you will be presented with the PDF Options dialog box. Click the bookmark tab on the top row and define your bookmarks. Once defined, Fm 2015 will default to the Bookmarks and Page view.

~Barb

[Kaalki2]

Well, that was easy!

Maybe I'm losing my mind, but I'm pretty sure when I did it a few versions ago it was not that simple, because I had been defining the bookmarks and then having to change the view properties every time to see the bookmarks panel.

Thanks BarbBinder!

[Barb Binder]

Easy is good!

(And it has been that way for years and years. It was not until Fm 2019 that the Fm to PDF workflow was updated.)

~Barb

[Winfried Reng]

Hi,

In FM 2015 I had a text frame which I had set as PostScript Code in the object properties.

In this PostScript text frame I had pdfmark commands to create a comment with printing instructions and to set the printer scaling of the resulting PDF file.

You can find instructions here:

https://www.adobe.com/content/dam/acom/en/devnet/acrobat/pdfs/pdfmark_reference.pdf

There you find instructions and examples.

On page 29 there is a section how to set the initial view of the PDF file in the section "Document open options (DOCVIEW)".

Possibly there are also other solutions to set the initial view.

My pdfmark commands were in separate text frames. I do not remember, if this was needed.

Here are my commands as additional examples (it could be that some of my commands are not correct; I just reused existing examples):

[ {Catalog} << /ViewerPreferences << /PrintScaling /None /Duplex /DuplexFlipLongEdge >> >> /PUT pdfmark

/pdfmark where {pop} {userdict /pdfmark /cleartomark load put} ifelse

/Y exch def

[ /Rect [ 0 0 0 Y ]

/Open true % Annotation is opened. (Default is closed.)

/Title (Printing instructions) % Title of the annotation.

/Contents (Paper format: DIN A4, double sided

Colour: 1 colour, black

Scaling: none

Fold: as appropriate

Punching: none

Binding: none) % Text in the annotation box. Line breaks can be entered by a new paragraph or by \n.

/Color [1 0 0] % Colour of the annotation, the values are red/green/blue, ranging from 0 to 1.

/Name /Comment % Type of the annotation. This is used for the symbol, when the annotation is closed.

/ANN pdfmark

The actual command text were set via variables, so that I had not to edit the text in the PostScript frame directly.

The text after the single % is a comment.

The PostScript text frame must be somewhere on the body pages. It does not matter where.

Another info source is the PostScript & PDF bible from Thomas Merz. You can still find it as PDF.

Best regards

Winfried