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Adobe PDF Printer disappears after 8.1 update

Forum Index > Deployment & Installation > Adobe PDF Printer disappears after 8.1 update
2007-06-07 13:10:38
karlgreenwood
Registered: Jun 7 2007
Posts: 3

My Adobe PDF Printer disappeared after I updated my Acrobat 8.0 Pro to 8.1 on my Vista Ultimate laptop. For the most part this is still usable because I can convert to PDF from a file or IE, but when I want to convert to PDF from the web on Firefox, I no longer can find the printer. I didn't see any mention of this in the KB post on the update, the line about "PDF printer driver in Vista supports high quality PDF creation." makes me think it's still there somewhere. Do I have to add a new printer using this mentioned driver? If so, how? Has anyone else run into this?

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2007-06-09 15:02:54
#1
[email protected]
ExpertTeam
Registered: Sep 24 2005
Posts: 252
Under the HELP menu, can you REPAIR INSTALLATION?

Jon

I've been using Acrobat since v1.0 and still get amazed by its power. An Acrobat ACE since 1999

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2007-06-17 17:32:14
#2
karlgreenwood
Registered: Jun 7 2007
Posts: 3
Repair installation worked. However, I did receive the following message from Thomas Zerobov (xcon0 [at] yahoo [dot] com) who asked me to post his solution:I saw your post
(http://www.acrobatusers.com/forums/aucbb/viewtopic.php?id=274)
about the disappearing PDF printer driver after upgrading from Acrobat 8.0 to 8.1, and I was having the same problem as you were.

Here is a step-by-step guide to my home-brewed solution which worked for me (on my Windows XP Media Center Edition computer).

-----------
Ok, after messing around with things some more, here is a way I have found to get your Adobe PDF Printer back.

These instructions worked on my Windows XP Media Center Edition computer:

1. Click on Start, then Settings, then Printers and Faxes 2. Right Click anywhere in the Printers and Faxes folder and select Add Printer 3. Click Next, and select 'Local printer attached to this computer' (uncheck the 'automatically detect and install my Plug and Play printer' box) 4. Click Next 5. On the next screen, select "Use the following port"
and look through the drop down menu until you see something like "Desktop\*.pdf (Adobe PDF Port)" or "My Documents\*.pdf (Adobe PDF Port)". Select either one of these ports and click Next.
6. On the next screen, just pick a random Manufacturer and Printer, as you'll be changing the printer drivers in a couple steps anyway, so it doesn't matter what you select now. (I just picked the first Manufacturer/Model on the list, which was the Alps MD-1000 (MS). But again, this doesn't matter.
7. On the next screen, put in the Printer Name ('Adobe PDF Printer' is what I use).
8. On the next screen, select whether or not to Share the printer on your network.
9. On the next screen, be sure to select 'No' to printing a test page, as you're not finished yet.
10. Click Finish on the next screen (ignoring the fact that it gives you some random printer model just now).
11. Right-click on your newly created printer in the Printers and Faxes folder, and go to Properties.
12. Click on the Advanced tab.
13. Where it says 'Driver', use the drop down menu to change the driver to 'Adobe PDF Converter', which you should see in the drop down list.
14. After changing the driver to the Adobe PDF Converter, select Apply and then hit OK to exit out of the menu.
15. Congratulations, you should now have your Adobe PDF printer back and should be able to print files to it as usual! :) 16. If you want to go ahead and uninstall that temporary printer driver you installed in Step 6, go to File and then Server Properties in the Printers and Faxes folder.
17. Click on the Drivers tab.
18. Select the driver that you installed (in my example it was the Alps MD-1000 (MS)), and select Remove, click OK on the confirmation dialogue that pops up (don't worry you can still reinstall the driver later if you ever get that printer model for real).
19. Click Close, and you should be done!

I realize that this seems like a lot of steps, but I just wanted to be sure to write everything out so anyone who may experience the same problem and ends up doing a web search for it will find the instructions and hopefully resolve the issue. Good luck!

(Oh, and the reason for selecting a random printer driver in step 6 is that the Windows Add Printer wizard doesn't give you the option to select Adobe as a manufacturer, so you have to go about it in a round about way, as far as I could tell, please correct me if I'm wrong).

Another update: I just found this (http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=333221&sliceId=2)
article in Adobe's knowledge base, it has a lot of complicated "solutions" involving messing with system files and the like, with the overall impression being that Adobe doesn't really expect them all to work, or there wouldn't be so many "solutions." At any rate, I found my way to be much simpler and effective...Hope this helps!

Cheers!
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