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PDF Distiller not working

acurrie
Registered: Jan 11 2007
Posts: 2

Whenever I try to make a PDF from another program (Word, PowerPoint, etc.) I get a message: "acrobat distiller cannot continue because Acrobat is not activated." The program is activated. I have not been able to find any information on how to fix this, and the program is useless to me unless I can create PDF files. What do I do?

My Product Information:
Acrobat Pro 8, Windows
tedpadova
ExpertTeam
Registered: Dec 31 2005
Posts: 848
First thingh to check is your Acrobat installation. You might try to use the Help > Repair Acrobat Installation menu command to insure the PDFMaker is working properly with the Office apps.Use the PDF Maker (Windows) or the Print dialog box and print to PDF (Macintosh) after running the repair.

If you still experience problems, submit another post and be sure to identify what viewer, version, and Office version you're using.

ted

The author of numerous books on Acrobat, Photoshop, Illustrator and the Adobe Creative Suite, and an international speaker on Adobe Acrobat, Ted Padova is a well-known PDF guru.

carrimak
Team
Registered: Dec 13 2006
Posts: 165
This is sometimes fixed by rebooting.

I get that message sometimes...usually when I have closed acrotray.exe for some reason in task manager. Rebooting fixed it.

Also, be sure the rest of your system is up to snuff...registry checkers are useful here; as is "repair office" and "repair Acrobat."

Hope this helps...

Carrie Makover

Acrobat is probably the program I use most often and I'm learning more every day.

IanduP
Registered: Jun 12 2007
Posts: 5
I'm getting the same message when trying to create a pdf from MS Word. When I go to Start - Programs - Acrobat Distiller 8 the same message appears. Trying to create a pdf from within Acrobat by selecting the word document, i get "pdf conversion process failed, please correct error and retry". I have reactivated, reinstalled and repair several times with no effect. I'm using XP Pro SP2 with Office 2003 and NAV 2007. Please help as this is driving me up the wall.
cute43guy
Registered: Jan 5 2009
Posts: 3
Probable Solution: (this worked for me with word 2003 and vista 64)

go to control panel, printers

edit the properties on the PDF Printer

two settings must be set for this to work properly

1. under the ports tab, adobe pdf cannot be set to lpt1 or com1 or some such port
it must be set to Documents\*.pdf (near the bottom of the list of ports)
2. under the advanced tab, dont set spooling. click the little radio button next to "Print Directly to Printer"

that fixed the problem for me
good luck
bapent
Registered: Mar 5 2009
Posts: 1
I upgraded from an XP to Vista PC and loaded FrameMaker 7.x, MSOffice 2007, and Acrobat 7.0; however, whenever it goes to load the distiller or PS driver, the red-X Sever box pops up.
Distiller is one of the printers, but always fails when try to print to it or make a pdf.
Everything else seems to work at this point. Any ideas.....
Thanks,
bap
daka630
Expert
Registered: Mar 1 2007
Posts: 1420
Hi bap,
re: Vista
You will have to upgrade Acrobat.
Specifically to 8 or 9.
If to 8 you will have to then process the updates.
Support for Acrobat 8 on Vista began with the update 8.1.

See:
[url=http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/knowledgebase/index.cfm?id=333780]Support policy for Acrobat 7 and 8 on Windows Vista[/url]

fwiw, a useful link - (Acrobat 7 PDFMaker does not support Office 2007 - need Acrobat 8.1 or better)
[url=http://blogs.adobe.com/pdfitmatters/2008/12/version_compatibility_of_acrob.php]Version Compatibility of Acrobat PDFMakers[/url]

re: FrameMaker (with all applicable updated patches installed)
In XP
FM 7.1 with Acrobat / Distiller 7 at the last dot version update can/does kak when trying to process *large/complex* FM books to PDF.
(particularly if said book files are set up to "front load" Section 508 Accessibilty support in the tagged output PDF)
FM 7.2 with Acrobat / Distiller 7 at the last dot version update is ok.
FM 7.2 with Acrobat / Distiller 8 at the last dot version update is better.
In XP & Vista
FM 8 with Acrobat / Distiller 8 at the last dot version update hums right along. (XP & Vista)re: Compatibilty FM - Vista
See: [url]http://www.adobe.com/support/products/pdfs/adobe_products_and_windows_vista.pdf[/url]
Page 5 -

Quote:
Q. Does Adobe FrameMaker 7.2 run on Windows Vista? Does Adobe plan to update it
for Windows Vista support?

A. Adobe FrameMaker 7.2 and earlier do not support Windows Vista. However, Adobe
currently plans to release the next major version of FrameMaker for Windows Vista.

If you have to live in Vista with Office 2007 you'll have to upgrade your Adobe products.

Be well...

Be well...

docwho221
Registered: Apr 20 2009
Posts: 2
I would like to use distiller to convert 100's of powerpoint files to pdf, and cannot seem to get it working. I can convert single files using the icon in the powerpoint toolbar, and I can print to pdf.

When I drop files into the distiller window, all I get is a quick error message, always the same:
%%[ Error: undefined; OffendingCommand: ÐÏࡱá ]%%
%%[ Flushing: rest of job (to end-of-file) will be ignored ]%%
%%[ Warning: PostScript error. No PDF file produced. ] %%

I use MS Office 2003, Acrobat Pro v9.1 (which I reinstalled), Windows XP SP2.

Thanks for any advice - Richard
abhigyan
Expert
Registered: Nov 29 2007
Posts: 223
Distiller processes PostScript files and cannot process PowerPoint files. Try the command Create PDF>from multiple files in Acrobat.
docwho221
Registered: Apr 20 2009
Posts: 2
The suggestions was a good one. It is found under File/Create PDF/Batch Create Multiple Files. This opens a window, and I was able to drag and drop files into the window. I tried a mix of PowerPoint and Word files, and Acrobat handled it without problems. Now I can create a batch list, and let it run unattended. Thanks for helping out,
Richard
Alan Healy
Registered: Jun 16 2009
Posts: 9
All of a sudden, I cannot convert any documents into PDFs.

I have Adobe Acrobat Pro 7.0 running on Microsoft XP & have tried converting Microsoft Word
docs and those from other applications. It is important to stress that I
have managed to do this many times in the past, but for some reason Acrobat
has suddenly stopped doing this. I have tried 'printing' to PDF and
'converting' to PDF. Each time I get the following error message on a
'Notepad':


"%%[ Error: undefined; OffendingCommand: setdistillerparams; ErrorInfo:
CalCMYKProfile U.S. Web Coated (SWOP) v2 ]%%
%%[ Flushing: rest of job (to end-of-file) will be ignored ]%%
Error accessing color profile: U.S. Web Coated (SWOP) v2
%%[ Warning: PostScript error. No PDF file produced. ] %%"

I have clicked on 'Detect & Repair' under the 'Help' menu button in Adobe
Acrobat and this supposedly did some form of reinstalling/fixing (without
the need for a CD to be inserted into the computer) and asked me to turn off
my computer & then turn it back on.Having done this, I still cannot get docs to convert to PDF.

I have not added any particular hardware or software to my computer in
recent times. Apart from the PDF conversion, everything else in Adobe
Acrobat Pro seems to run fine. I can read all documents etc.

Can you help me?

Alan
Alan Healy
Registered: Jun 16 2009
Posts: 9
I reinstalled Adobe Acrobat per the advice of someone on this forum, but it has made no difference.

Alan
Alan Healy
Registered: Jun 16 2009
Posts: 9
Wuhoo! I sorted the problem after applying someone's suggestion to change the colour profile in the printer set-up.

A
Alan Healy
Registered: Jun 16 2009
Posts: 9
OK, so I got carried away... The problem is only half solved.

I changed the colour in the printer set-up when printing to PDF from "Convert to RGB" to "Preserve colours". Now I can convert Final Draft docs to PDF no problem. However, when I try to convert a Microsoft Word doc to PDF it 'prints' as a blank page. I have played around with the colour options. but other selections seem to create an 'error' in the prinitng process.

Anyone got any ideas?

Thanks,

Alan
Alan Healy
Registered: Jun 16 2009
Posts: 9
OK, I've got everything to work - so long as I 'Print' docs to PDF rather than clicking on the PDF conversion icons (if I click on these icons, I just get an error).

But if I print to PDF, everything now works - I've even managed to solve the Word problem - I think it was a faulty Word doc for some reason. I found a useful document which told me how to set up all the settings for Acrobat Distiller (http://mydocs.epri.com/docs/CorporateDocuments/WorkingWithEPRI/CreatingAcrobatPDFs.pdf).

If you know how to make the PDF conversion icons work (it must be something simple) that'll save me having to print each time, it would be great, but I can survive without this.

A
lkassuba
ExpertTeam
Registered: Jun 28 2007
Posts: 3636
Have you tried to going to back to the Acrobat Default settings in the Advanced Print menu to see if it corrects the problem?

Lori Kassuba is an AUC Expert and Community Manager for AcrobatUsers.com.

jmcenerney
Registered: Oct 19 2009
Posts: 7
I am experiencing similar aberrations creating PDFs in Word 2003. There is a drop-out of certain links within my PDFs created in Word (some links work, not all of them). The header image is formatted correctly in the word doc, but when I try to make a PDF, the header image is forced to it's own page and moves the rest of the content onto a new page. What is going on? I've done this before with a slightly different formatted webpage with great success. I also need to make sure Adobe Professional is open before the Word plug-in will work. Otherwise, nothing happens.
lkassuba
ExpertTeam
Registered: Jun 28 2007
Posts: 3636
Do you have the Adobe PDF printer selected as the default printer prior to created your PDF from Word?

Lori Kassuba is an AUC Expert and Community Manager for AcrobatUsers.com.

jmcenerney
Registered: Oct 19 2009
Posts: 7
No I don't, but will try this.
jmcenerney
Registered: Oct 19 2009
Posts: 7
This gave me one additional link, but I am still missing roughly 20 others that show only as static text.
lkassuba
ExpertTeam
Registered: Jun 28 2007
Posts: 3636
jmcenerney wrote:
This gave me one additional link, but I am still missing roughly 20 others that show only as static text.
Have you tried renaming your Word Normal.dot file? I've seen a lot of cases where a corrupt file causes hyperlink issues in the resulting PDF. Or, cutting and pasting (except for the last para tag) to a new Word document. Or, saving the file as XML and then re-saving back to Word. This will re-write the Word file and possibly eliminate the problem.

Also, there was a known issue with Acrobat in which [url=http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/404/kb404291.php]Table of Content hyperlinks are not created in PDF if "Use hyperlinks instead of page numbers" is unchecked in Word[/url].

Lori Kassuba is an AUC Expert and Community Manager for AcrobatUsers.com.

jmcenerney
Registered: Oct 19 2009
Posts: 7
I tried renaming the Normal.dot file, didn't work. I've tried relinking the links (CTRL-A F9), did not work. Setting the default printer as Adobe PDF printer also doesn't have an effect. There isn't a TOC in my document, it is an enewsletter in HTML with several graphics within tables. The links appear just fine in the word doc. There seem to be several entries on bugs with Word 2003 and Acrobat. Could this be the issue?
jmcenerney
Registered: Oct 19 2009
Posts: 7
Sorry, also tried the XML method. Did not work.

My version of Word is 2003, Acrobat Professional is 8.0.

On another note, The HTML I am cutting and pasting is from Outlook, formatted using Constant Contact. The odd thing is that we had zero issues with PDF creation until I changed the newsletter to contain more graphic content. The Header usually insists on having its own page, unless I shrink it substantially and then the rest of the rows will sometimes move up. Could graphics be part of the problem?
lkassuba
ExpertTeam
Registered: Jun 28 2007
Posts: 3636
jmcenerney wrote:
Sorry, also tried the XML method. Did not work.My version of Word is 2003, Acrobat Professional is 8.0.

On another note, The HTML I am cutting and pasting is from Outlook, formatted using Constant Contact. The odd thing is that we had zero issues with PDF creation until I changed the newsletter to contain more graphic content. The Header usually insists on having its own page, unless I shrink it substantially and then the rest of the rows will sometimes move up. Could graphics be part of the problem?
Try setting the Adobe PDF Printer as the default prior to creating your PDF from Word. I've seen a lot of issues around cutting and pasting content. This seems to cause issue with hyperlinks for some reason.

Another member had success by checking/unchecking various options in the Bookmark tab of the PDFMaker macro -- perhaps you can try this.

Also, if you haven't already done so, you'll want to update to the latest version 8.1.7:
http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/product.jsp?product=1&platform=Windows

Lori Kassuba is an AUC Expert and Community Manager for AcrobatUsers.com.

SallyC
Registered: Mar 12 2010
Posts: 1
Help, I too am having trouble all of a sudden.

I have Acrobat 7 Pro.
Windows Vista

I have been using the print to adobe pdf printer to make electronic copies of emails forever! Now it stopped working. First, attempt to work around this, I saved my outlook email to a file in Outlook Message Format, then I opened Acrobat and created a pdf from that file. That worked until I did "detect and repair" Now I can't make a pdf from anything???

Did Vista or Acrobat do an update in the last couple of weeks that makes these programs unable to work together?

Also I have Expensable I can no longer print to the Adobe printer from ther either???

Please help. Is the only answer to upgrade?
What changed in the last week or so to make things stop working?
MsTerry
Registered: Mar 18 2010
Posts: 1
Sign me up with those needing a kind hand with distiller. Suddenly, it will not convert anything to a pdf file. I have a version of Distiller in Adobe Acrobat 5.0....ancient, I know, but working well until a couple of weeks ago. There is no error message. The job goes to the print queue and disappears.

I am working on a Windows XP platform with current updates.

Thank you for your time.