PDF reactor suddenly being used when creating a PDF from RoboHelp

[Alexandra Duffy]

Hello, My team has the latest version of RoboHelp (2022.1.188). We also have Acrobat Pro 2022.003.20322.
All of a sudden, when we create a PDF of one or more topics in RoboHelp, the PDF has this at the top of each page: "Created with RealObjects PDFreactor(R) Evaluation Version | https://www.pdfreactor.com"

We didn't install PDFreactor and we don't want it. We tested other programs like PhotoShop, Outlook, Word, etc. and no other program is doing this except for RoboHelp.

After searching around, we see that RoboHelp and Adobe "integrates PDFreactor into RoboHelp."

We don't want to use this way of creating PDFs and have this disclaimer at the top of each PDF page! How can we return to regular use of PDFs with Acrobat and not PDFreactor?

Thanks!

Alexandra

[Peter Grainge]

Where have you found Adobe integrates PDFreactor? I have been using RoboHelp for over twenty years and never seen any reference to that program or seen it referred to in these forums.

Have you looked in Programs to see if it is installed? I just checked my main machine and there is no reference to it.

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My site www.grainge.org includes many free Authoring and RoboHelp resources that may be of help.

[Alexandra Duffy]

Hi Peter,

Yes, of course we checked whether we had installed it, so we could remove it if so. I am an experienced RoboHelp user and never had this issue.

On an Adobe RoboHelp page, we found this statement: "

As an OEM partner Adobe Inc. integrates RealObjects PDFreactor into RoboHelp® in order to stream content as PDF, which is one option among various RoboHelp® publishing formats and channels, incl. Responsive HTML5 and Mobile App.

Thank you,

Alexandra

[Alexandra Duffy]

Sorry. That's not on an Adobe page. It is here: https://www.pdfreactor.com/oem-partners/

[Alexandra Duffy]

We had never even heard of PDFreactor until this morning when creating a PDF from a topic in RoboHelp.

[Peter Grainge]

My apologies for not knowing what you have checked. 

I notice the page you link to includes reference to Mobile Apps from RoboHelp. They are no longer part of RoboHelp so I suspect it's an old claim.

I suggest you take this up with Adobe. See https://helpx.adobe.com/contact/enterprise-support.other.html#robohelp for your Adobe Support options. The email link tcssup@adobe.com is recommended as it reaches a team dedicated to Technical Communication Suite products including RoboHelp. 

________________________________________________________

My site www.grainge.org includes many free Authoring and RoboHelp resources that may be of help.

[Alexandra Duffy]

Will do, thanks, Peter!

Alexandra

[Peter Grainge]

You would be surprised how often a "have you" question about something seemingly obvious reveals it hasn't been done. 

________________________________________________________
My site www.grainge.org includes many free Authoring and RoboHelp resources that may be of help.

[Peter Grainge]

Registry search?

________________________________________________________

My site www.grainge.org includes many free Authoring and RoboHelp resources that may be of help.

[Alexandra Duffy]

The "program" (if it is a program?) does not show up in the registry.

Good thought though.

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

You wonder if it snuck in with some of the other products they mention on their site. 

[Alexandra Duffy]

Nothing on that site is installed on our machines except for RoboHelp.
At first I was sure this had nothing to do with Adobe, but it's only happening in RoboHelp and only recently.

We did notice that it happens when you right-click on a topic and select Save as PDF, but it does not happen if you create a TOC and use the PDF output preset.

Thanks,

Alexandra

[Peter Grainge]

Did the change come immediately after an update? 

Can you install on a second machine and see if you get the same issue?

 ________________________________________________________
My site www.grainge.org includes many free Authoring and RoboHelp resources that may be of help.

[Alexandra Duffy]

We updated to RH 2022.1 recently. It had been a while since we needed to create a PDF, so we aren't entirely sure when this started. But there are five of us, all on different computers, working remotely, with the same issue. I posted here, wondering if others also see this, to know if it's just us or more widespread.

[Peter Grainge]

As I said, I have never seen it mentioned before.

What's the remote setup? RoboHelp is on your local machines and the project is remote or is RoboHelp on the remote machine?

Were your tests for the PDFreactor program and the registry on the remote machine(s) and did you also test the machines you are working on?

I am clutching at straws here but pending confirmation I have sought, I believe this is a problem unique to your environment.

The real test if it is possible is installing RoboHelp on a different machine that is accessed directly.

________________________________________________________

My site www.grainge.org includes many free Authoring and RoboHelp resources that may be of help.

[Alexandra Duffy]

Sorry, when I said remote, I meant that we are all working remotely and that we aren't all in one office or location. I didn't mean we are working on remote machines. I appreciate your clutching at straws!
Clearly, Adobe knows about this program. If you go to: https://helpx.adobe.com/robohelp/using/generate-pdf-output.html they mention that "Before adding a new external font, clear the font cache. The font cache is at "user.home/.PDFreactor". Example - /Users/rhuser/.PDFreactor. "

So this has something to do with fonts? We tried clearing the font cache but it made no difference.

I don't think it would be helpful to install on a different machine, since we are all on different machines. That was what I was attempting to say when I said we all work remotely.
Here is our best guess - this PDFreactor has been around (the folder is not new - it's from 2021) and it is used silently by Adobe. However in the latest update, the engineers may have put in the wrong product key (for the evaluation version) in the code. So we are now getting PDFs that say we are using the evaluation version of this product.
I think this is a bug. I'm filing it with Adobe and emailing tech support as you suggested, above.

In the meantime, we can create PDFs by using the TOC/PDF preset method, so we are OK.
I will certainly post any resolution to this here.

Thank you for your help, Peter, and Jeff!

[Peter Grainge]

I'll poke around in the morning but what do you mean by TOC/PDF preset? The TOC bit is what is confusing me. 

________________________________________________________
My site www.grainge.org includes many free Authoring and RoboHelp resources that may be of help.

[Alexandra Duffy]

What I mean is, if we right-click on a topic and select "Save As PDF," we get this problem. But if we create a one-topic TOC (or several topics for that matter), and use that TOC in the PDF output preset, we do not have the problem.

[Peter Grainge]

Ah! What I can confirm is that Save As PDF is working without that issue for me. Do you have Acrobat Pro or the basic version that installs with RoboHelp? 

________________________________________________________
My site www.grainge.org includes many free Authoring and RoboHelp resources that may be of help.

[Stefan Gentz · Accepted solution]

I have checked with the product team, and it is a know bug that appears in specific scenarios. They are already working on fixing it and an update will be made available probably next week.

[Alexandra Duffy]

Hi Stefan, that is great to know. Thank you very much and thanks for the help, Peter! (We have Acrobat Pro just FYI Peter.)

I look forward to the update from Adobe.

Alexandra

[Alexandra Duffy · Accepted solution]

The 2022.2 update fixed this issue. Thanks!

[Peter Grainge]

Thanks @Stefan Gentz. Saves me setting up a test. 🙂 I had contacted VK but he is travelling.

________________________________________________________

My site www.grainge.org includes many free Authoring and RoboHelp resources that may be of help.