Is this a hypothetical? I didn't catch that Bill or anyone else said they couldn't install 15.0.8 using the OS in place at time of release, but were having issues with installation after the release of 16.0.2 By @Matt-Tech Comm Tools   Matt, Bill (and meanwhile obviously others) said he couldn't install update 8 in the environment in which FM2019 (earlier build) was successfully running. This should be a minimum requirement for patches (bugfixes), to work in the environment in which the host application is running. We're not talking about an FM2020 fix/patch, but an FM2019 patch.   Edit/update, just to make this as clear as possible: the error message/problem description does not say "your system is too new for the patch to work", which is what you're suggesting. The opposite is true, it says "your system/software is too old, update everything first". This is completely contradicting what you intend to say. The patch obviously doesn't allow to keep the system status as is, it enforces updating it.   Bernd ... View more

Matt, I believe it's possible you misunderstood my posting:   As I understand Bill_M's error report, the updater to FM2019 requires a software/OS update, on a machine which already had/has a running and working FM2019 installation. Now enforcing software/OS updates just for applying FM2019 patches seems a questionable thing to me. The linked information page from Adobe states "If you are not using the latest operating system or browser, you may see a warning when you try to sign in to Adobe software." Signing in (or out) is the current version of activating/deactivating software on your computer. Means: trying to sign in (into an exisiting FM2019 installation) may start failing one day, if you don't update your OS/software.    This is the opposite of what you are talking about, i.e. the possible failure of FM2019 in a continuously updated OS, up to the latest versions of Win10 or even Win11. I'm not asking Adobe for updating FM2019 to run in future OS versions (after support for FM2019 has ended). I'm asking Adobe to allow trouble-free use (including applying patches) in an existing and untouched environment without requesting software/OS updates.   However, if this error is not caused by Adobe, but by other components of the OS, my worries have been stated in the wrong place… 😉   Bernd ... View more

I just had this issue happen here, too. It took me almost two days to figure out what the culprit was. This is FrameMaker 2015 (patch5) on Windows 10 Pro, version 20H2:   I was trying to save different files and books to PDF, and had to force quit FrameMaker after every single attempt because - other than a permanently spinning hourglass/wheel - nothing happened. FrameMaker did not save a PDF file, did not create a *.tps file, and did not give any error message, for a very long time (I've waited for more than an hour once). Nothing happened, actually, apart from FrameMaker apparently freezing.   I did a few tests with newly created and more or less empty pages (just a few words), which could successfully be saved to PDF. So I started to inspect the graphics used in the regular files, if those could cause issues. Another few hours later I knew that the kind or details of graphics were not the issue. It was simply the presence of (pixel) graphics which prevented the PDF files from being saved.   I started watching the save-to-PDF event in the Windows task manager. There, during attempted PDF creation,  I found a system idle process (94%) and MsMpEng.exe (6%). Without having started a PDF creation in FrameMaker, there was only the system idle process (99%). The above happened reproducibly. Start saving a PDF, and the MsMpEng.exe goes to 6%. Googling this exe showes it belongs to Windows Defender. Obviously each time I started saving a PDF, Windows defender intercepted the data stream which should be written to file (tps) and inspected it for virus activity, which brings the whole PDF creation process to a grinding halt.   Windows defender allows to set exclusions. First I tried to exclude the drive (folder) to which the files were written, but this did not change anything. Then I excluded the process "FrameMaker.exe"… bingo. This solved it. From hours of spinning hourglasses back to a few minutes, including the regular events like writing and later deleting a *.tps file.   This seems to be a Windows 10 thing, and maybe only specific versions. We have several FrameMaker 2015 installations in Win7 VMs which work reliably and without any problems. And I already had created PDFs with this Windows-10 based FrameMaker installation before, without problems. This all started after the (recently performed) update to 20H2.   Just in case anybody else encounters such problems with saving PDFs: There's a solution. However, I don't quite understand how that problem started in the first place… must be something in the last Windows update.   Bernd ... View more

I remember having the same problem when first installing FM2019 in a Win7 Parallels VM, which I used to keep away from the internet and which was lacking some updates. The reason was an outdated version of the MS Internet Explorer, on which the whole installation process seems to depend. I haven't understood that kind of prerequisite back then, and I still don't really understand it, but updating Internet Explorer was the solution.   Bernd ... View more

I've just tried it, all 4 patches download fine here (Firefox 84, Mac). No workaround needed. ... View more

LinSims might be correct. Your chapter number is formatted as white text. Since your current page is missing that brown block on the right side, you have white text on white paper. The chapter number is probably still there, just invisible. You need that brown block on the master page back.   It's also possible that you have a defined additional master page (not Left/Right) for the first page of each chapter, which would need to be assigned to the first page. If this is the case, it currently isn't. Check which master page is assigned to your first page of this chapter.   Bernd ... View more

The color preview in FrameMaker has never been a reliable reference. All RGB colors in FM always look "quietschebunt", even worse with imported graphics 😉   FrameMaker converts the RGB value of 255, 15, 55 to CMYK 0, 78.4, 62.7, 15.7, which results in 0, 78, 63, 16 in the final CMYK PDF. Of course this color also doesn't look similar to the preview or the RGB PDF output. ... View more

Where does that color conversion come from? "It converts into…" is not quite right. It totally depends on the application and color profiles (if used) which CMYK value results from your RGB value. FrameMaker doesn't use any color profiles at all, and the automatic conversion of the RGB to CMYK value is totally different to your result. Affinity Photo shows different results depending on the used profile, and Photoshop says that this RGB color is not directly translatable to CMYK, I guess that's where your K value comes from. Anyway, an RGB value which cannot be directly translated to CMYK will definitely result in different outcomes when exporting to RGB or CMYK PDF.   Edit: Sorry, I misread the R value (255 instead of 215). But this still results in totally different CMYK values (e.g. 2-94-64-0) depending on the application and profiles. So where does your conversion come from?   Bernd ... View more

Hello Stefan, I'd prefer option C (specific templates). It's as easy as importing the template formats into the book with all chapters. The big advantage: You do not only replace the font (as in option D), but also language specific paragraph format settings like the Asian composer, language, etc. You can also create combined fonts for the Asian languages, which also can be imported from templates.   We're doing this here for many of our documents. It's basically a list of all paragraph and character formats (created by a script), which we use as a template for format import. When we get files from translation, we just import the formats from the respective templates (in our case mostly for Chinese simplified/traditional, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Farsi), and… tadaaa… all is well.   Regards, Bernd ... View more

These spaces are typically a part of the character in Asian fonts. The paragraph designer has an extra tab for Asian typesetting. Is the Asian Composer enabled? There is an extra setting for punctuation spacing (compression: auto or always on). Check these settings. Bernd ... View more

Yes, looks like two separate paragraphs. Is the number possibly a run-in heading, to be formatted differently from the text? ... View more

@Hima_ib, finding out which color to change is easy. Just open the Pitstop Inspector and click on an object which has the wrong color. The inspector will give you the exact color parameters of this wrong color. Now just write down these parameters and enter them into the "RGB" part of the color assignment dialog. For the CMYK part, just use the CMYK parameters as entered in the FrameMaker color definition for these objects.   That's it. Now Pitstop will only change this exact color to the desired CMYK color. You'll have to do that for any wrong RGB color in your document. ... View more

As Jeff says, changing the font is done with a few clicks. Anyway, I tried to show the Pitstop route in a single picture. Sorry, it's the German version of Acrobat and Pitstop, but maybe you get the idea. For that reason I'm not sure if I can tell you the correct function/command names, but I hope it's clear. You'll need to create an "Action list", with "Re-assign colors" as the (only) action, and then define a color change pair (RGB->CMYK) for each RGB color you wish to change: ... View more

This is your document, just using the Nimbus Sans ME font, saved as PDF using the publish route (CMYK). Italics are correct, and colors are correct, too: ... View more

Pitstop is a plugin for Adobe Acrobat which can be bought separately. This plugin allows to configure so-called "Quick Runs", which is an automatic processing of certain modifications to the PDF. Among these modifications there's an option to convert colors using a specified pair of RGB-to-CMYK conversions. You'd need to read the color definition of the "wrong" color (RGB) and define a "correct" color definition for the required CMYK color. Pitstop is not cheap, though. You might get away with lower costs if you'd use an Arabic font which offers a real italic version.  For our Arabic documents I'm often using the Nimbus Sans ME font, an alternative might be the Myriad Arabic font by Adobe. Not sure if the latter still can be bought, or only received via subscription, though. ... View more

When checking the Arial Arabic font on the distributor's website, there is no italic version. Which suggests that FrameMaker is creating an italic version on its own. If this is the case, there's something I've noticed with Asian fonts in the past: Correct PDF output of italicized/obliqued Asian characters (which also don't have native italic versions) is only possible when switching to RGB output. This may happen either by printing to PS/PDF (which automatically uses Windows Postscript and thus RGB), or by enabling the RGB option in the FrameMaker PDF/publish options. Of course this changes the colors of FrameMaker elements, which is why I'm using a Pitstop color conversion in Acrobat as a post process in such cases.   ... View more

Yes, even when logged in it's shown as "not found". ... View more

Bob, that link to ANSI Z535.1 Safety Colors in Frame leads nowhere… at least for me. Any idea what's wrong? ... View more

Yes, definitely uncheck the "Rely on system fonts only" option. This is always causing problems and prevents fonts embedded in, e.g., EPS files from being written to PDF. However, this might not be related your current problem. ... View more

Yes, but the 64-bit download button doesn't work. Just the 32-bit download. However, 64-bit download still works with the link on top of this thread. ... View more

Yes, thanks, this is working for downloading software installers which have originally been bought via download. No updates, though, and no installers for software bought as boxed versions. ... View more

Thanks, Jeff, but a "licensing server" is supposedly something somebody with a subscription has access to, correct? This does not help with all the perpetual licenses. Anyway, I've got all the installers (original media), but these usually install the x.0 version of everything. It would be nice to have the collected updater files at hand, in order not to have all the downloads again for each installed version. ... View more

Update: the "attempt to write to a readonly database" error could be solved by running the FM10_LicenseUpdater.exe as admin. A current link to FM/TCS updates would still be nice. Thanks, Bernd ... View more

These links don't work any longer. Is there an updated link for downloading updates to older versions of FM and the TCS? I'm specifically looking for TCS 3.0 updates and FM10. I've got this dreaded "licensing for this product has expired" bug for FM10, and the "FM10_LicenseUpdater.exe" I've saved back then doesn't seem to work any longer. I get an error message "Could not update FrameMaker 10 license: attempt to write a readonly database". Has anybody successfully installed and updated an FM10 license recently? Thanks, Bernd ... View more