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A
Anonymous
February 5, 2009
Question

FM 8: Acrobat Distiller has stopped working

  • February 5, 2009
  • 8 replies
  • 5398 views
I've recently upgraded to FM 8 and am trying to print a .book that I printed successfully many times in FM 7.

I am doing a Print Book... command. When I get to a certain .fm file, I receive the message "Acrobat Distiller has stopped working." I click OK and in a few seconds, the system informs me that my .pdf was created successfully...except, it doesn't exist. (When I try to do a "Save as PDF," a .tps file is generated that is very large, but no .pdf.)

The only difference between the problematic file and the others is that it is in a different folder than the previous files. I've even tried re-creating the file from scratch.

At this point, I'm not even sure what to check to try to diagnose the problem. I am running FM 8 (p 277) on Windows Vista Business SP1. Do I need to update Distiller somehow? How can I check the Distiller version? What folder would contain a detailed log of the print attempt? (I've printed other .book files that came over from FM7 without incident.)

Thanks for any suggestions.
    This topic has been closed for replies.

    8 replies

    S
    sreedevii
    Participant
    September 8, 2010

    hi there! i am sad, i have a problem (got an error message) while trying to save a special font into my computer. The message is: Acrobat Distiller has stopped working. i am using vista home. please tell me what i have to do, many thanks.

    Van Kurtz
    Van Kurtz
    Inspiring
    September 9, 2010

    I suggest posting your problem on the Acrobat forum. It is an Acrobat issue, not a FrameMaker issue.


    A
    Anonymous
    February 6, 2009
    Thanks for letting us know your progress, Jason. For future reference, if you have odd problems with files in the future one troubleshooting step prior to recreating the file is to save the file as "MIF" format (select MIF in the dropdown box below the filename in the "Save As" dialog box) and then open the MIF and save it as .fm again.

    This (sometimes) can clean out possible goblins lurking in the binary file.

    Typical goblin causes are things like importing content from other sources (e.g. Word etc), or doing copy paste from other apps through the Windows clipboard, or adding/removing content that eventually just gets the file somehow "polluted".
    A
    Anonymous
    February 5, 2009
    Thanks for your suggestions. It looks like the problem was with the file itself. The last time I "created from scratch" I copied and pasted all the content into the new file from the old file and ran into problems.

    This time, I really created from scratch - as in manually re-typing the entire file etc. It now prints to a PDF with no problems.

    So the problem is resolved, although not exactly "solved."
    A
    Art Campbell
    Inspiring
    February 5, 2009
    And the Reader's Digest version:

    The full version of Acrobat should be installed _after_ the FM install.
    If it finds a newer version of Distiller, I believe it'll leave it alone. If not, you may need to remove it manually.

    Art
    A
    Anonymous
    February 5, 2009
    Elaborating on Van's post, if you already had any version of Acrobat (including the freebie Reader) or the Acrobat Pro installed on your system before Acrobat Pro was installed, or if FM was then installed, and if the IT dept. installed FM's version of Distiller when they installed FM, then you could have a mish-mash of a Distiller installation.

    I don't know if these version numbers might be different on Vista vs. XP, but fwiw, if you look for the file "acrodist.exe" (usually in Program files > Adobe > Acrobat 9) and hover your mouse over the right side of the filename, you'll see a popup window that shows version.

    My WinXP, FM8 p277 installation, with the full Acrobat Pro installation and =not= the FM installed version of Distiller, shows the acrodist version number as 9.0.0.332
    _
    _Van_Kurtz_
    Known Participant
    February 5, 2009
    Jason,

    Acrobat Pro v9 should be the source of Distiller, but make sure there is only ONE Distiller app on your computer. Acrobat does not like multiple versions on one computer.

    Van
    B
    b_deacs1957
    Participant
    June 9, 2010

    Van, can you tell me how to find and delete extra distiller apps?

    Brian

    Van Kurtz
    Van Kurtz
    Inspiring
    June 9, 2010

    Brian,

    I do not know, because I am not that Windows savvy.

    But, when I ran the Acrobat Pro Installer, the installer found the other instances and gave me the option to delete them, warning me that they SHOULD be deleted. In other words, I let the installer do the finding and deleting.

    Van

    A
    Anonymous
    February 5, 2009
    Yes I converted every file to FM 8.

    I don't know what instance of Distiller was used...the computer was built by our IT staff. However, I do have Acrobat Pro v9 installed...is it safe to assume that this is the source of Distiller?
    A
    Anonymous
    February 5, 2009
    Have you opened and saved each chapter, and the book itself, as an FM 8 file?

    Did you install the Distiller that came with FM, or do you have a separate Acrobat program (Acrobat Pro or whatever, not the free Reader).
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