Problems editing FM 9 created PDFs

[Guest]

Hi, All,

We aren't sure if this is a FM issue or a Reader issue, but thought I'd post it here to see if anyone's seen anything similar.

We create our documents in FM 9 and save them as PDFs we distribute to our editors. Recently, we've been getting complaints from our PDF editors (using Adobe Reader 9) with a variety of weird errors and corruptions going on. One user edited the PDF, saved it, attempted to close it, and received a corruption error and found some edits were missing. Another user edited, saved, closed, reopened, and got an error about unknown objects and none of the edits were available. Still another user wasn't able to save the edited PDF file, locally or to our network. None of these appear to be related to permissions, read locks, or file location.

This could easily be gremlins in our system, since everything's just a tad random, but after finding nothing in the forums, I was wondering if others were having or had seen any of these or something similar.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts!

-Jenn

[AxialInfo]

Have you double-checked that all of the users and the PDF generator are using the same update version of Acrobat, there have been several little point updates recently.

[Guest]

What I suggest as an alternative and, possibly an effective troubleshooting step, is to download the freeware

www.cutepdf.com. It loads as a printer driver. Then, "print" your document to cutepdf and see if this PDF doc works. -- Ron

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

First I'd check to see if the MS Hotfix for PDF printing issues applied to me; second I wouldn't do a Save As PDF (as that has been slightly flakey according to some posters), I'd print directly to the Adobe PDF printer instance - you do have Acrobat Pro, right? Next, I'd make sure that the Adobe PDF printer is always set as the default printer when inside FM (using the free SetPrint plug-in).

[Art Campbell]

I thnk Jeff distilled the collective Best Practices thoughts quite nicely...

But in regards to your particular problem, it's unlikely to be a Frame issue; much more likely that it's in Acrobat or the end user's Reader software.

For example, you don't mention what version of Reader they're using, but older versions won't be able to see some stuff produced by newer versions of Acrobat. So I'd make sure that your editors are all on Acrobat 9 before you go much further with debugging your setup, since the problem could easily be on the editor's side of the fence.

[Art Campbell]

I kind of mis-spoke there... that all your editors are using a fully patched version of Reader 9 -- there have been several patches and changes to the automatic updater.... which occasionally doesn't work

Art

[Guest]

Thanks for all the great troubleshooting suggestions. We're going to try them out and see what happens.

-Jenn

[Arnis Gubins]

Jenn,

Can you please clarify what you mean by "editing" the PDFs? The Reader doesn't allow editing, but will allow users to add comments if this function is enabled for the PDF, i.e.  is this what you're talking about - a commenting & review cycle? If so, exactly how are you enabling this functtion in the PDFs? Have you tested whether manually enabling this function using Acrobat 9 Pro (not available from the Std version) for a specific PDF also causes these problems?

[Guest]

Our editors are using the Comments and Analysis functionality in Reader. We create the PDFs, then open them in Acrobat Pro Extended and Enable for Commenting and Analysis in Reader.

We've found that some users have issues and others have none even when they're on the same (not updated) version of Reader (9.1.3). After watching the users and recreating the error on their machines, we're relatively comfortable saying it's not user error (which was my first thought). We're advising our editors all to update to the latest Reader. We also found our writers were on different releases of FM, so we've updated to all the same in case that was causing something funny.

We're still testing solutions and hoping we don't see any more funkiness.

Thanks for the thoughts!

-Jenn

[Shlomo Perets]

One of my clients reported the same problem. (Different versions of FrameMaker are used to author files that are then converted to PDF)

Having end-users revert to Adobe Reader 8 seemed to solve this problem.

An immediate workaround when someone comes across this problem is as follows:

1. Do not close the corrupt PDF
2. Export comments by selecting Acrobat Comments > Export Comment to Data File
   (the exported comments (fdf file) can also be sent to you)
3. Re-open the original file and save with a different name
4. Import the comments into the new copy by selecting Comments > Import comments.
5. Save the file.

It is possible that this problem is caused because of the way Acrobat saves changes to a PDF. Essentially, all changes are accumulated in a way that does not remove editing history ("incremental save"). Using the "Save As" function, overwriting the same file, removes all editing history and rewrites the entire file (which is why "Save As" is slower than "Save"). I recommend that your editors do a "Save As" once in a while -- you may find that this alone will resolve the problem.

Please share your results, as this is an issue that other uses have encountered.

Shlomo Perets, http://www.microtype.com

FrameMaker/Acrobat training & consulting

[Guest]

Thanks again. I'm sure when I start using 9.0 in the next few days I will be

back in the forum.

Ron Tillotson

Technical Writer

GameTech® International

8850 Double Diamond Parkway

Reno, NV 89521

[susmur]

Hi,

I had the same problem and also solved it by downgrading Adobe Reader to version 8.

It was difficult to find an installer ...

Susanne

[Shlomo Perets]

Older installers may be found at ftp://ftp.adobe.com/pub/adobe/ ; select the product, platform, version number, and localized version (where applies)

For example: ftp://ftp.adobe.com/pub/adobe/reader/win/8.x/8.2/enu/

Shlomo Perets, http://www.microtype.com

FrameMaker/Acrobat training & consulting

[Guest]

Thanks. I hope to receive a new PC loaded with Frame 9.0 today or tomorrow.

Looks like a learning curve will ensue. -- Ron

Ron Tillotson

Technical Writer

GameTech® International

8850 Double Diamond Parkway

Reno, NV 89521

[susmur]

Thank you for this information - that'll certainly be helpful in the future.

[Guest]

Thanks. I hope to receive a new PC loaded with Frame 9 today or tomorrow.

Then, I start at the bottom of the learning curve. Looking forward to it.

Ron Tillotson

Technical Writer

GameTech® International

8850 Double Diamond Parkway

Reno, NV 89521