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Print to PDF crashes Distiller

Forum Index > Printing & Prepress > Print to PDF crashes Distiller
2010-10-24 11:20:08
tomg
Registered: Nov 21 2007
Posts: 6

Have searched this forum and the web without any helpful results. I would appreciate it if anyone can provide any deeper insight into the workings of Distiller.
 
Here is a thorough description of the situation in the hope of getting a meaningful answer:
 
Distiller version: 7.1.4 installed with Acrobat Professional 7.0 (updated to 7.1.4). OS: WinXP SP3
 
The problem:
When trying to print to PDF from any application (FrameMaker, Acrobat Pro, MS Word, Firefox, etc.) Distiller crashes (stalls) upon opening. Printing from an application, Distiller and the parent application freeze as soon as the "Creating Adobe PDF" dialog appears. If opening Distiller directly, it crashes at the splash screen while displaying the "Starting Distiller" message.
 
The only recourse is to stop the acrobat and distiller processes (and parent application) with Windows Task Manager.
 
The applications themselves all work normally, the problem only occurs when invoking Distiller to print to PDF.
 
I have been using all of this software on this machine for years without any problem. I have not installed any new software or made any changes prior to this problem. The problem suddenly occurred when trying to print a Word document to PDF as I have done so many times before.
 
What I have tried so far:
1. Searched the web for similar issues. No meaningful suggestions found.
2. Reinstalled Acrobat 7 patches. No difference.
3. Tried the installation repair option with Windows Add/Remove Programs. No change.
4. Completely uninstalled Acrobat. (This deleted the Print to PDF option in all programs)
5. Reinstalled Acrobat, including reactivation (the software wanted to do that despite selecting the "Reinstall on same machine - keep current activation option during uninstall).
6. Reinstalled all Acrobat patches with required reboots and print tests between each one.
 
After all that, I'm back to the original problem.
 
The issue appears to be a problem with a file that Distiller links to when it launches that is not changed with Acrobat/Distiller updates and re-installation.
 
Thanks for reading this far, and many more thanks if you can help.

My Product Information:
Acrobat Pro 7.1.4, Windows
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2010-10-24 12:12:29
#1
tomg
Registered: Nov 21 2007
Posts: 6
More information:

Checking the Distiller messages.log file, it shows:

Adobe PostScript software version: 3016.102
Error in PDFA1B 2005 CMYK.joboptions:
/CheckCompliance out of range
Error in PDFA1B 2005 RGB.joboptions:
/CheckCompliance out of range
Acrobat Distiller 7.0
Started: Sunday, October 24, 2010 at 10:17:10


Does this give any further insight to anyone?
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2010-11-11 06:56:50
#2
bochse
Registered: Nov 11 2010
Posts: 1
I am having the same issues with printing to the Distiller. I've tried pretty much the same solutions as tomg. When I turn my computer off then restart, I get the error message that Adobe Acrobat has a problem and has closed. I have the option to send an error report. My error message refers to an error writing to the memory. Is there a way to clear out this history?

I'm using Adobe Acrobat Professional 8.1.

Thanks for any help that you can provide.
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2011-03-16 10:16:19
#3
salokj
Registered: Mar 16 2011
Posts: 2
Hi tomg
Did you ever find a response? I believe I have the same problem as you and a websearch only brings up your question on multiple sites, but I have not found anywhere where this was solved.

I also did most of what you did (uninstall, reinstall, etc...) to no avail.

Thanks a lot.
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2011-03-16 10:40:25
#4
tomg
Registered: Nov 21 2007
Posts: 6
Hi salokj,

No, sadly I have not resolved the problem. Sorry to hear you are having it too.

I now use Nuance PDF Creator for PDF generation instead of Acrobat. I had PDF Creator from before my Distiller problem - it came bundled with some other software that I bought long ago but never used before this. I still use Acrobat for other PDF tasks, just cannot use it to print to PDF. Interestingly, PDF Creator is much faster at finishing a print to PDF task than Distiller was.

I will be upgrading to a new Windows 7 machine soon, so when I'm up and running with that, I may experiment a little deeper with system files on this machine to see if I can find the problem. I am fairly certain it is a non-Distiller file that is causing the problem because despite a thorough uninstall/reinstall, the problem remains (or maybe there is a deeply buried Distiller file that is not deleted during uninstall and not over-written on reinstall).

It seems to be beyond the help of user's advice. I tried posting in some PDF programmer's forums, but never got a response.

Good luck to you. If you find a solution, please post it.


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2011-03-18 03:42:32
#5
salokj
Registered: Mar 16 2011
Posts: 2
Tomg,
Thank you for your response.
I'm actually running Win7 Pro and I also use the XP virtual machine for certain programs. I can use MS Outlook to print to Adobe Acrobat, but I can not use Word, Powerpoint, etc and I cannot make it work at all in XP Virtual (i have not installed MS Office on the virtual machine).

Like you this just appeared suddenly. I've been using this machine for over a year now and never had one problem and then it just happened.

I cannot remember when it started. I recently installed Win7 Service Pack 1, but I believe it worked after that. The only other update was a security update to Win7. If anything is responsible, I believe that it is this update because this is about the day that I realized there was a problem.

I will try to remove this update and repost if anything works.

Thanks,
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2011-03-26 10:40:00
#6
steelhead327
Registered: Mar 26 2011
Posts: 1
There could be an offending graphic (e.g. eps) or possibly a corrupted font.
You can test via a workaround.Have you tried using another pdf maker such as the free version of PrimoPDf?

PrimoPDF is not quite as fussy as Acrobat. Bottom line, if the pdf is created from Primo then go back and look at the elements in your native file.

Becky
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