location of custom PDF job options file

[Zaid Al Hilali]

Apparently Adobe changed the location where custom PDF job options files are stored. Some years ago, under Mac OS, the files used to be in /Library/Application Support/Adobe/Adobe PDF/Settings, the issue is when we drop a custom job options file in this folder, InDesign and Illustrator will not read the file. Instead we we need to store the custom job options file to the new location /Users/zaidalhilali/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Adobe PDF.

I understood from a client that same changes were made to the location of custom PDF options files under Windows platform too.

Did Adobe announce these changes? Or, are the paths to the new storing location mentioned anywhere on Adobe site or perhaps on the "Adobe PDF Creation Settings"? I'm sure Offset printers, pre-press guys and designers do look for this information.

[Steve Werner · Accepted solution]

Zaid,

The location of the custom PDF job options changed quite a long time ago.

In fact I wrote about it in an InDesignSecrets.com blog post in 2007!

https://indesignsecrets.com/customizing-pdf-presets.php

Look down at the very end of the article:

"One other technical note is that this location has changed for Acrobat 8 Professional (and presumably Adobe Creative Suite 3). The file format for the “.joboptions” file hasn’t changed, however. The default settings are stored in these locations:

Macintosh: Library > Application Support > Adobe > Adobe PDF > Settings

Windows: Documents and Settings > All Users > Application Data > Adobe > Adobe PDF > Settings

But, when you save your own customized PDF presets, they are stored in your local user location:

Macintosh: Users > [yourname] > Library > Application Support > Adobe > Adobe PDF > Settings

Window: Documents and Settings > [yourname] > Application Data > Adobe > Adobe PDF > Settings"

[Zaid Al Hilali]

Wow, so long time 2007! I need to sit with Pre-press people more often not just lecture others on what I knew.

Steve, apparently Adobe did change quite few things since launching CC, I hear designers or pre-press people says Adobe changed the location were we used to keep icc color profiles, and changing color settings isn't in a single location for all Adobe products as it used to, although I do know it is still available in Adobe Bridge.

Why do Adobe keep changing locations like that? Is it related to Operating Systems changing all the time?

[Steve Werner]

Great questions. I wish I knew!

[sukc42650077]

Actually customized pdf presets are stored in the folder below:

Go –> Go to Folder –> ~/Library/Application Support  –> Adobe –> Adobe PDF –> Settings

Macintosh: Users > [yourname] > Library > Application Support > Adobe > Adobe PDF > Settings only gives you the standard presets.

[rob day]

Actually customized pdf presets are stored in the folder below:

Go –> Go to Folder –> ~/Library/Application Support  –> Adobe –> Adobe PDF –> Settings

Hmm, I'm not seeing that. The Adobe application default presets are in my OS startup drive library not my user library. As Steve suggests, my user library has my saved presets.

My startup drive Library ~/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Adobe PDF/Settings:

[sukc42650077]

What you posted are standard pdf presets that come with Indesign.

Customized pdf presets are in the folder that I mentioned:

Go –> Go to Folder –> ~/Library/Application Support  –> Adobe –> Adobe PDF –> Settings

The picture below shows my customized pdf presets.

[rob day]

Go –> Go to Folder –> ~/Library/Application Support  –> Adobe –> Adobe PDF –> Settings

Right but Go to Folder > ~/Library takes you to your user folder, which is the same as what Steve posted for the custom directory in #1:

Users > [yourname] > Library > Application Support > Adobe > Adobe PDF > Settings

If you drop the ~ you end up in the startup drive Library with the default presets—Steve's Macintosh: Library > Application Support > Adobe > Adobe PDF > Settings

[sukc42650077]

I am not sure if I understand what you wrote.

If I follow Users > [yourname] > Library > Application Support > Adobe > Adobe PDF > Settings, I don't see Library under <yourname>. See below screenshots.

Are we even talking about the same system here? I am on MacOS High Sierra and Indesign 2018.

[rob day]

Are we even talking about the same system here? I am on MacOS High Sierra and Indesign 2018.

Yes.

The tilde (~/) character you are using with Go To Folder is shorthand for skipping to the user folder's Library.

So Go To Folder /Library takes me to my startup drive Library, which contains the default presets:

Adding the tilde character ~/Library skips to the Users folder, which contains the custom presets

Startup/Users/fishercat/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Adobe PDF/Settings on my system:

[sukc42650077]

Thank you to both Rob and Steve.

Can you kindly tell me (and others) how to get to that invisible library folder under user's name without using the path with the tilde like this?  Go –> Go to Folder –> ~/Library/Application Support  –> Adobe –> Adobe PDF –> Settings

[Steve Werner]

To make it always visible:

Click on your User folder in the sidebar in a Finder window. Then choose View > Show View Options > Show Library Folder

[sukc42650077]

Thanks.

But when I tried this is what I got:

I must be an idiot so be patient with me 🙂

[Steve Werner]

You user name is "sukchoijuly2018"

While that is selected, you choose View > Show View Options. When the View Options window opens up, it should show your username at the top of the window. But your View Options window shows "Macintosh HD". That means that when you chose the command, in the Finder you had selected the icon of your hard drive.

Here's a new one of mine to show you to show you at the top of the window it shows "stevewerner"

[sukc42650077]

Ahh! Thank you! Thank you! and Thank you!

[Test Screen Name]

Because this is complicated and because people might not want to see all these hidden files, I'd recommend teaching people the Go to Folder method. Also to learn about the difference between /Library and ~/Library, when you use which one, and when you might use both.

[Steve Werner]

It depends on the skill level of the person involved. I was (perhaps incorrectly) assuming that because the question was asked here, they always wanted to be able to see the folder.

[Test Screen Name]

I think we may have heard from people at all different skill level... but I was responding specifically to this question...

"Can you kindly tell me (and others) how to get to that invisible library folder under user's name without using the path with the tilde like this?  Go –> Go to Folder –> ~/Library/Application Support  –> Adobe –> Adobe PDF –> Settings"

To which my response would be "why would you want to do that when it's so much more awkward..."

On the other hand, the steps described are more complex than they need to be, when the user can just use

Go > Go to Folder -> ~/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Adobe PDF Settings

[everydarnnamewastaken]

THIS right here is what I needed! I haven't set stuff like this up for a bit, but my company was sold to a new owner and of course that means all new systems and redoing settings. 

I had completely forgotten the MUCH easier way to get to this and it saved me so much frustration. 

And I'm someone who would consider themselves very well versed in Adobe oddities like this!

THANK you sir for taking it down lamens terms - we all need it sometimes!

[sukc42650077]

Mr. Werner, I think you are doing a wonderful job here at the forum teaching people like me what Adobe fails to do.

After searching, struggling and failing for over three hours to find those PDF presets (of course I read your column, but I couldn't see the invisible library folder using your path, Users > [yourname] > Library > Application Support > Adobe > Adobe PDF > Settings), I finally decided to call Adobe Support team and that's when I was given the path, Go > Go to Folder -> ~/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Adobe PDF Settings. The support team didn't bother to tell me that it was a path to an invisible folder and I was so happy and relieved I also didn't bother to ask.

Question is WHY ARE THEY INVISIBLE to begin with? What's the purpose of hiding them?

I have a totally different question now and I hope you can help me on this too.

All this software-related questions were raised because my main computer, Mid 2011 iMac, started having issues with its video card AMD Radeon HD 6970M 1Gb, so I had to get a new 2017 iMac and reinstalled softwares.

Do you, or anyone else, know where I can get the video card replaced?

I found out that the exact video card had a known issue, Apple replaced it for free until 2015. Of course Apple didn't notify me about that... Andt Apple no longer supports the video card and no one else can replace it in New York City.

Can you make a suggestion what I should do?

Thanks in advance.

[sukc42650077]

And... does the image you uploaded show the list of your customized presets?

I don't understand why they are exactly same as standard presets that came with Indesign...

This is what you uploaded:

[Steve Werner]

I'm currently using InDesign CC 2018.1 running on macOS 10.13.5.

Here are my custom PDF presets at the moment (at the bottom of the list):

Here's where they live on my Mac:

[sitamey]

Dear All,

We use Adobe CC Applications in Windows 10 Environment. From the time we upgarded to Adobe CC, whenever we use cutom joboptions file in the location "C:\ProgramData\Adobe\Adobe PDF\Settings", the adobe Applications do not recognize them. We have to always copy under each username in the location "C:\Users\,username>\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Adobe PDF\Settings". This is tedious as we need to copy this in each user's profile on each system in a muli user environment. In RDS systems it is even more tedious :-). The common location works well for Adobe CS6 applications in same Windows 10 environment.

Would appreciate any solution from anyone.

Thanks and Kind Regards

Meyyappan S

[sitamey]

Found that adobe CC doesn't look at "C:\ProgramData\Adobe\Adobe PDF\Settings" where Adobe CS6 used to look at for common PDF settings. The three Adobe Applications viz. InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop in Adobe CC 2020 look at the below folders.

C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe InDesign 2020\Resources\Adobe PDF\settings\mul

C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Illustrator 2020\Support Files\Required\pdfsettings\settings\mul\settings

C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop 2020\Required\PDF\Settings

Finaly did a mklink command to map these folders to 

"C:\ProgramData\Adobe\Adobe PDF\Settings". Actually we can map it to any location where we want to unify common PDF settings folder. But as this folder has the standard PDF settings and this has been the location in earlier versions, just mapped it here.

It is still a myth for me to understand why Adobe would keep three different locations for the PDF settings specific to each component application in the suite. Would be great of someone can answer this.

Kind Regards

Meyyappan S

[Laubender]

FWIW:

The standard joboptions files of my German InDesign CC 2018.1 on Windows 10 are in:

/c/Program Files/Adobe/Adobe InDesign CC 2018/Resources/Adobe PDF/settings/mul/

If I had the Japanese version it would be:

/c/Program Files/Adobe/Adobe InDesign CC 2018/Resources/Adobe PDF/settings/japan/

My custom ones saved from InDesign are in:

~/AppData/Roaming/Adobe/Adobe PDF/Settings

Where the ~ is pointing to my user directory.

That directory can be reached directly from InDesign through the Scripts Panel.

Select User in the Scripts Panel and the context menu will open the following directory in your file system:

~/AppData/Roaming/Adobe/InDesign/Version 13.0/de_de/Scripts

From there it's no problem to reach the Settings directory for the joboptions files.

Store the directory in your "Favorites" or do an alias on your desktop and you are good to go.

Regards,
Uwe