Missing Adobe PDF printer instance--Frame 7.2

[Guest]

I just installed Frame 7.2 and Acrobat 7 (I also have Acro 6 and Frame 7.1 on the machine), but in that install I did not end up with an adobe printer instance so I cannot save to PDF. I've been all over the forum and web but cannot figure out where I would get this (and why it wasn't within the install). Any suggestions? Thanks....jen

[Matt S - Tech Comm Tools]

Having multiple versions of Acrobat Pro on your machine is generally regarded as a Very Bad Idea.

Having said that, I believe that the Help menu has a Repair Installation (or similarly worded option) under the Help menu. That should reinstall PDF options for various applications, and also reinstall your print driver. If not, reach out to Shlomo Perets at microtype.com.

-Matt

[Guest]

The 7.2 Help menu doesn't seem to have any kind of option like that (just Support, Updates, Registration, Adobe Online, Quickstart, and About). I'll try Shlomo-thanks!

[Matt S - Tech Comm Tools]

The Acrobat Help, not the FM Help menu...sorry for being unclear.

[Guest]

Are we talking about Distiller here? Because that is the only Acrobat I seem to have installed. And that help menu shows Acrobat Guide, Distiller Parameters Guide, pdfmark Guide, and About. And no apologies of any kind! I appreciate your help.

[Matt S - Tech Comm Tools]

Yep, uninstall anything that sounds like FM, and anything that sounds like it's releted to the Acrobat family, and they do the install from the FM7.2 disk.

IIRC, you have a few updates to do once you get FM installed. You can poke around on the Adobe product page to download those manually while you install.

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

As Matt says, different flavours of Acrobat (even Reader & Distiller), is a Very Bad Idea - Acrobat is one of those products that just doesn't play nice with itself. If the Repair option doesn't work, you'll need to go back to square 1 and uninstall all flavours of Acrobat, then reinstall your latest one (I think you said you've got version 7). Don't forget that installing FM as a standalone version will want to install a "headless" version of Acrobat too - that may also be the cause of your munged up install. You may need to uninstall FM7.2 first, reinstall Acrobat 7, then install FM7.2 paying atttention to the install option of the distiller.

[Guest]

So, I didn't have a repair option. My Acrobat install came from the Frame disk--and I can't access it separately (I don't think). Do the older versions of Frame come with the printer instance? Should I maybe just uninstall all instances of Acrobat (6 and 7) and Frame (7.1 and 7.2) and start again?

[Matt S - Tech Comm Tools]

Yep, as Jeff mentioned, there's an option to install Acrobat (Distiller, IIRC) with your FM install. Starting without any FM or Acrobat installs should work just fine.

[Guest]

I did get prompted to install Acrobat, but it was AFTER Frame installed. Jeff said "reinstall Acrobat 7, then install FM7.2 " I'm not sure what it means to install Frame as "standalone"--does that just mean saying no to the acrobat option?

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

@quabbinjen - sorry, I thought you had a full license for Acrobat Pro as well as your standalone copy of FM; you only have the "headless" copy of Acrobat Distiller in that case. I would take Matt's advice and uninstall all FM and anything that sounds like Acrobat, then install FM7.2 with all options selected. That should get you back to printing to the Adobe PDF printer instance.

[Matt S - Tech Comm Tools]

Keep in mind that (speaking also for Jeff here) we haven't used 7 in many, many years, but I suggest you do the uninstalls, then follow the prompts from the FM7 installer to also install the Acrobat.

[Mike Wickham · Accepted solution]

I think that the source of the confusion is that a person can own the

full, standalone version of Acrobat (Distiller). FrameMaker also

provides a stripped-down version of Acrobat Distiller, which has fewer

features, but allows those who don't already own Acrobat to create PDFs

from within FrameMaker.

So, if you own the full version of Acrobat, install it. Then install

FrameMaker and reject the option to install Acrobat, Distiller, PDF

Creation add-on, or whatever it is called in your FM version. If you

install both the full version of Acrobat and the FM add-on version, you

will end up with a broken mess. If you don't own a full Acrobat version,

then you need to install the PDF add-on that comes with FrameMaker.

Also, if you install the full version of Acrobat, there should be never

be more than one version on your computer, and you should NOT also

install Adobe Reader or the FM PDF Creation add-on. Mixing

Acrobat/Reader versions, or mixing Acrobat with the PDF add-on is a

known recipe for trouble.

[Guest]

OK, thanks for all the help. I came back into work today, removed all hints of Frame, Distiller, Acrobat, Reader, everything. Still have the same problem. This time though, I got the warning number, which seems to point to a more fundamental problem. I am running Windows 7 (64-bit) with Acro 7, which doesn't support it. I'm going to buy a new copy of Acrobat (they say this problem was fixed in 8 and later, if you consider extracting printer dlls from .cab files etc. a solution). However, if I am running Frame 7.2, can I get the latest Acro 11? Or are they worlds apart?

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

I'm not even sure FM7 is supported under Win7 64bit - unless you run it in the virtual XP machine that some editions of Win7 allow you to construct. You may want to explore that method if upgrading isn't viable.

[Bob_Niland]

> I'm not even sure FM7 is supported under Win7 64bit - unless you run it in the virtual XP machine that some editions of Win7 allow you to construct.

I would not expect it to run as is. Try XP mode.

You need Windows 7 Ultimate, Professional or Enterprise to install the free XP Mode download.

Windows 7 Basic, Home and not-so Premium reportedly refuse to install XP Mode.

This is for Windows 7. I have no idea what the edition names are for Window 8, nor the status of XP Mode on that failed platform.

XP Mode might install on Windows Server, but Frame itself will likely not run unless it is the Frameserver edition.

Do report back on the XP Mode experiment, as I may have need to run that config in the future.

[Mike Wickham]

I'm not sure about the compatibility of those earlier versions of

FrameMaker and Acrobat with Windows 7 64-bit, but when you say you have

the same problem, do you mean that you still got no "Adobe PDF" (or in

older Acrobat versions, "Acrobat Distiller") printer instance when you

reinstalled? Or just that you still cannot save as PDF? If you still get

no printer instance, you probably do need to update to Acrobat 11.

But if the virtual printer is there, but Save As in Framemaker is not

working, try instead to print the file and choose the virtual printer,

rather than using Save as PDF. Save as PDF was highly unreliable in

earlier versions of FrameMaker, and the cause of a large number of

support issues on this forum. Plus, there were changes made in Acrobat's

file locations around version 7 or 8? (the version, I think, that

changed the printer name from Acrobat Distiller to Adobe PDF) that broke

the Save As PDF ability completely in older FM versions, because they

were still looking in the old locations for the support files.

In general, any version of Acrobat should work with any version of

FrameMaker, as long as you print to PDF, rather than Save as PDF.