Save as PDF

[Marco van den Biggelaar]

Hi All,

I'm working with Framemaker 8.0p277 on a Windows XP machine.

Often I read answers that one should not use the Save as PDF option. Instead one should print to a Postscript file and distill that file.
But why is the first option is less better then the second? Can someone please explain this for my understanding.

regards
Marco

[_Van_Kurtz_]

Janice,

This may not be relevant to the speed differences you are finding, but working over a network (especially with your imported by reference image files residing on a network drive) can slow things down considerably. I use the Archive plugin to move all the files to my machine and then create the PDF from there; cuts the time in more than half.

Also, if you inadvertently hide graphics, PDF creation is very fast, but I doubt if you did that.

Van

[Software Maniac]

Don't know. Will verify all of those settings. Thanks for the advice. Then what would you all have suggested for pre-FM9 in order to print to PDF? The Save As PDF would frequently crash under FM8 and FM7 under Windows Vista.

I tried the Save As PDF under FM9 and it worked. Some Type 1 fonts got crushed (I'll check on your comments, Arnis) and non-opaque frame backgrounds (like a 20% blue) rendered 100% blue. Not exactly what I wanted.

I will uninstall a HP Postscript driver that I found. Yikes!

[Guest]

Thank you, Sheila. It's embarrassing that I call myself a Technical Writer and I couldn't follow simple instructions!

Van,
Does it matter whether the printer is set to Adobe PDF if you use the Archive plugin then? My images are all stored in one folder, but they are on the network.

Ok everyone, I have set my printer to Adobe PDF, restarted FrameMaker and have set the same document mentioned previously to print. It so far still seems to be taking longer than I expected (10 minutes so far & it's only 46% done). I'll let you know what I learn. In the meantime, you'll miss me...

Janice

[Guest]

Hi everyone,

Having set my printer to Adobe PDF and printing the same 80+ page document (no changes), it took 30 minutes. Plus, I obviously did not have it set up correctly, because that just produced a postscript file. It took another 10 minutes to distill.

I'm thinking you may be on to something though, Van, regarding the images being referenced from a file on the network. I will do some more experimenting.

Sorry this is such an ongoing saga, but changing my default printer has not fixed my PDF creation issues.

Janice

[Art_Campbell]

Janice,

No one suggested that setting your system default printer to Adobe PDF would solve the problem, but it's a Best Practice setup that eliminates a host of other potential problems.

The PS file was generated (probably) because on the FM Print dialog box, you had Print To File checked.

I skimmed back over the thread, but don't see your system config, except that you're on Vista. How much RAM are you running, and are there any other memory-hungry applications running when you distill? Like Photoshop or other graphics tools? And, given that your files are on the network, have you tried opening all the files on your desktop before distilling?

Art

[AxialInfo]

Janice, an easy way to move all your files to your desktop in order to remove possible network issues would be to use Bruce Foster's $25 Archive plugin, it's here:

http://home.comcast.net/~bruce.foster/Archive.htm

[_Van_Kurtz_]

Janice,

Sheila's post lists the plugin I was talking about; I could not remember the developer's name or the link to it.

The Archive plugin has nothing to do with the printer. It's main purpose is to COPY a book and all its document files, along with all the graphics and text inserts used in those files, into one folder, which you can conveniently create on your desktop. It also RELINKS all the graphics and text inserts to point to the book and files in the folder you designate. Thus, it copies everything into one place so you can hand it off to a translator, for example, or burn it to a CD; hence the name Archive.

But once you have everything on your desktop, you can create a PDF, and working on your desktop is much faster than working over a network, especially if some graphics are used in multiple places in your documents.

BEWARE though that your files stored on the network are the main source files. If after copying them to your desktop you find something that needs editing, editing the file on the desktop and then copying it back to its original place on the network means you will have to relink all the graphics and text inserts to their locations on the network, which can be time consuming, especially if the graphics are in several folders. I think of it as a one way street to my desktop for printing purposes, NOT editing.

As Sheila says, it is only $25, and it really cuts down the time to create PDFs, IF the time problem is due to working over the network. My PDFs still take 30 minutes or so, but that is quicker than an hour or more.

Good luck,
Van

[Guest]

Thank you, everyone. I really appreciate the feedback.

Art, I'm working with a 2GHz processor, 1983 MB RAM with Adobe Distiller 8.1.3 and Acrobat 8.1 and FrameMaker 8.0. Typically, I am not usually running anything else that would sap memory when I distill my docs.
Re: "The PS file was generated (probably) because on the FM Print dialog box, you had Print To File checked." My file with a ps extension was still listed in the Print to File box, but I had unchecked the Print to File checkbox. Is there something else I need to have in the settings to automatically distill the postscript file? Also, I haven't tried opening all my files on my desktop yet because I wasn't sure that having them on the network was the issue. Now that it seems more and more to be the problem, I'll try that next.

Sheila & Van, Thanks for the Archive plugin info. After experimenting with moving my files to my desktop and creating the PDF from there, if it helps, I will certainly look into it.

I love this forum. Thanks again everyone,
Janice

[_Kenneth_Benson_]

Check printer properties for your Adobe PDF printer (in Control Panel >
Printers and Faxes). Are you printing to an Adobe PDF port, or to the
FILE: port, or to some other port?

--
Kenneth Benson
Pegasus Type, Inc.
www.pegtype.com

[AxialInfo]

Janice, in order of likelihood I'd definitely spend the time to copy your docs to your desktop (being sure that all the links work afterwards, of course) and then testing the PDF generation after that, as the most important test. There have been tons of postings on the forums over the years where folks have resolved slow PDFing times with this one change. And if your IT folks balk, tell 'em to post on here, we'll set them straight in a hurry <g><br /><br />As to having the automatically distill process working, you could possibly have a bad/corrupted install of Distiller and the Distiller printer instance which might be causing the output not to be "auto-distilled" when you print to the Adobe PDF printer. <br /><br />I think it might be wise to tackle one issue at a time, though -- following the thread can get pretty tricky when troubleshooting multiple issues.

[Guest]

Sheila,
I copied my files to my desktop and created a PDF of the book in less than 1 minute. At first I thought that answered the question of the network being an issue. Then, just for fun, I created a PDF of the network files (same book) and it took about 3 minutes again. I was one of only a few people on the network yesterday when I got it to work in 3 minutes (thought that explained it). But today the network is busy and still it only took 3 minutes. I've decided to just give myself a huge cushion of time to get a PDF to someone and if it takes an hour, it takes an hour! Just kidding.

Kenneth,
I checked my Adobe PDF printer properties and am printing to an Adobe PDF port.

Janice

[Guest]

Sheila,

Re: "As to having the automatically distill process working, you could possibly have a bad/corrupted install of Distiller and the Distiller printer instance which might be causing the output not to be "auto-distilled" when you print to the Adobe PDF printer." How can I determine the distiller printer instance that my computer is using? Now, when I print to the Adobe PDF printer, a message displays saying it is printing, but now I can't even find a postscript file on my computer to distill. I can't locate any output this way. With "Save As PDF", it is time-consuming, but at least I get results eventually.

I have made sure the Print to File option is unchecked in my printer settings. My Adobe PDF printer settings (Control Panel>Printers) is showing that it is printing to an Adobe PDF port. If this is incorrect, I will have to consult my IT department as I tried to configure and was denied access. Is there something else in my printer settings that I need to confirm?

Janice

[Arnis_Gubins]

Janice,

The Adobe PDF port has a setting telling it where to deposit the
completed PDF files. By default this is to your Desktop, but it may be
modified on your installation. You have to check to see where it
thinks it should be putting the output.

During this process, it creates a temporary postscript file, runs
distiller on it and then deletes the temporary file.

[AxialInfo]

What do you see when you do File > Print Setup, e.g. this is what I have in FM8 on WinXP, when I have the Adobe PDF printer set as the default printer (I use SetPrint so that the default is set only for FM).

Name: "Adobe PDF" (note the space in the name)
Type: Adobe PDF Converter
Where: xxx\*.pdf

The path ( the "xxx" ) in Where could be something like "Desktop" or it could be "My Documents". If it's not either of those, what is it?

In the Control Panel > Printers properties, for the Ports tab, the printer port should be "Adobe PDF", yes. There is nothing to configure for this port, so clicking on Configure Port produces a bleep saying there's nothing to configure.

When you click on the "Advanced" tab, what does it show for Driver? Mine shows "Adobe PDF Converter". Under that the Spool print documents has "Start printing immediately". Below that, the only box checked is "Print spooled documents first".

[_Van_Kurtz_]

Continuing with Sheila's post...

In the Printers Properties dialog box for the Adobe PDF printer, select the General tab. At the bottom is a button; click Printing Preferences. In the subsequent dialog box, there is a drop-down list named Adobe PDF Output Folder. You can select either My Documents or Prompt for PDF File Name; I have select the latter. In this case, every time you create a pdf by printing to the Adobe PDF printer (without saving to file), the printer asks you for the name of the pdf file, which includes the ability to select where you want to save the file. For me, this is more flexible than always having to go the My Documents to find my output and move it where I want it.

And to emphasize Arnis' point, printing to Adobe PDF WITHOUT saving the print file to disk results in a PDF and NO PS file to distill. The printer does the distillation.

Van

[Guest]

Sheila, Arnis & Van:
My settings are the same as yours, Sheila. I have used SetPrint to make Adobe PDF my default printer. Adobe PDF Converter, Start printing immediately, and Print spooled documents first are set.

I too have selected Prompt for PDF filename, Van, with Print to File unchecked. I have tried this twice now and am not prompted for a pdf filename. Though I have made this selection, my Print Setup screen shows Where: Documents\*.pdf. When I look in that folder there is neither a pdf nor ps file there.

Re: "During this process, it creates a temporary postscript file, runs distiller on it and then deletes the temporary file." I think is skips the middle part of this process, Arnis. I get a Printing File screen and it shows the status bar while my book gets processed, but then nothing happens. It may create a ps file, but then it must delete without distilling, because I can't find one anywhere. I've searched for files with both pdf and ps extensions. Nothing...

Any other possibilities?
Janice

[AxialInfo]

With all the posts back and forth I've lost track of whether you have a separate installation of Acrobat Pro (and if so, what version?) or are you using the free Acrobat Reader and the Distiller component that might have been installed along with the FrameMaker install?

In either case, though, I'd say that your Acrobat Pro or FM-Distller setup may be past the point of diagnosis, and ready for extreme measures, i.e. a complete reinstall.

Often times things aren't installed in the best way, or the "Adobe PDF" printer gets clobbered, leaving it only partially working, or a reinstall of one component just messes something else up.... whatever.

To do this, though, you need to follow the "best practices" for a good re-install.

How about letting us know the version numbers, and then we'll dig up some reinstall instructions (they've been posted on the forum previously, I'm trying to save us some Fri. afternoon I'm-out-the-door angst!)

[Guest]

I have Adobe Reader 8.1 and Acrobat 3D 8.1.3 installed. Is there an easy way to determine which distiller component that my computer is set up to use? (I didn't do the original install.)

Janice

[AxialInfo]

When you have a Distiller that's from a "full" Acrobat program, when you double-click on the "acrodist.exe" program (in the Acrobat install folder), do should get a dialog window that opens, where you can choose "Default Settings" in a dropdown box (aka. "job options"), and where you can watch the distill process in the areas down below that. You can drag .ps files into the window and watch the log file as they're being distilled.

If that's the case, then have a look at the Help About and see what you can find as far as version numbers go.

If you have the Distiller that comes from the FM install then there's no dialog window that opens, the distiller is "headless" (sort of lobotomized) and therefore much more difficult to control directly because of this.

[Art_Campbell]

Janice,
Reader can't distill anything. It's read-only.
If you want to try the reinstall route, I'd uninstall Acrobat, reboot, and then load it up again...

Art

[Guest]

Help>About tells me it's using Adobe Distiller Professional 8.1.3.

[Guest]

Thanks, Art. I think I'll try that since my settings seem to match those of other users and nothing else seems amiss.

[AxialInfo]

Janice, one more thing, when you uninstall Acrobat, I'd also delete the printer "Adobe PDF" too, so that it will get recreated. Do this before you reboot.

And, don't forget to check for updates so that your Acrobat is the latest and greatest.

[Guest]

Sheila/Art:

I uninstalled and reinstalled Acrobat. No need to delete the printer; that seems to happen automatically. (It wasn't there between uninstall/reinstall.) I checked for and installed updates and rebooted. I then attempted to print my book as before (with Print to File unchecked to Adobe PDF) and I get the Printing Book status screen, but still can't locate output.

As an added experiment, I performed the Save Book As PDF function and it worked in 3 minutes again. Everything seems uncorrupted, but I now get a message that I never got before: "Warning: A part of the Capture 3D plug-in has been damaged." It goes on to state that I must repair the installation and if that doesn't work to configure my anti-spyware program to not monitor registry changes. I'm not sure how to repair the installation short of doing another complete reinstall. I recall reading somewhere in the forum, someone else having to reconfigure their anti-spyware program. I'm thinking that may be my next step. Your thoughts?

Janice

[AxialInfo]

Unfortunately the answer on temporarily disabling antispyware or antivirus apps is almost unique to each app. Plus, if you're on a corp. network or set up as a limited user, you may not even be able to disable it anyway.

A repair installation is usually done by reinstalling the app and there's a point where you're able to choose "repair installation". I tried that recently with Acro9 and it didn't solve the issue I had, so I ended up doing a full uninstall / reinstall process.