Framemaker 11 on Windows 7 cannot print to PDF with PDF image content

[Gary1606]

The PDF images load into Framemaker and everything looks fine, there are also JPEG images and TIFs contained within the book. The book builds ok, but when we try to print the book to PDF we get errors. When the PDF images are swapped for dummy images the book will print to PDF or if we substitute JPEGS and TIFs for the PDF images the book will print to PDF.

The PDF images were produced in Illustrator CC and on average are about 90K in size.

The error we get is as follows: 'Error EF get textframe on page with name - Invalid page identifier'

Error opening PDF file for "MF_set_pdf_view_bookmark"D\EXPORT\figures\book title.pdf

I am the illustrator who produced the PDF images for our Authoring department, we have just recently upgraded to Windows 7 PC's, Framemaker 11 and the complete Adobe Creative Cloud Suite. The technical publications that we produce contain thousands of illustrations in jpeg, tif, cgm, cc4 and pdf format due to legacy data, but all new and amended illustrations I would like to supply as pdf's. I can overcome the problem by exporting the illustrations as jpegs or tifs, but this is not solving the pdf content problem.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Gary B.

[Arnis_Gubins]

How specifically are you creating the PDF from Illustrator (hopefully, you are not just trying to use the Illustrator file as is)?

Are your "images" raster or vector? If they are raster, I would recommend using a more appropriate format (TIF, JPG, PNG, etc.)

FWIW, FM converts PDF files to EPS versions internally on import, so you may be better off just exporting an EPS from Illustrator for vector-based graphics also.

[Gary1606]

I am flattening the layers and transparency in Illustrator and saving as PDF.I have created a PDF preset with the following settings: Standard= none, Acrobat 6 (PDF 1.5), optimize for fast web view ticked and view PDF after saving ticked. I use these settings to minimise file size as the Framemaker book contains hundreds of images.

The PDF can contain a mix of vector and raster images, colour raster, vector line art, black and white raster etc. This is the reason why I wish to use the PDF format as it covers all bases. I have already produced hundreds of image files as PDFs for our publications and had no problems with the PDF export settings. We cannot understand why we are having this problem now, our IT dept, the Framemaker authors and myself in the Illustration dept. are all puzzled.

Regards

Gary B.

[Arnis_Gubins]

What parameters and joboptions are you using in FM when creating the PDF? The CMYK PDF route is quirky, so if you aren't producing for CMYK press work, use the RGB option.

FYI, EPS exported from Illustrator fully supports mixed vector, raster and type.

[Gary1606]

The document will be an electronic publication and will not be printed, the authors prepare the document for a PDF print.

In our particular business we use a number of publishing applications and bespoke databases, the database where the images are stored for this particular publication generates a page template, a unique identification number which incorporates customer information, publication info and chapter info. A master file Adobe Illustrator or Isodraw and a published file format PDF, JPEG, TIF, CC4 is stored within the database, EPS files are not currently supported. Historically we have had problems in the past with certain file formats and the databases that we use.

[Arnis_Gubins]

It sounds like the PDF is being properly created from Illustrator (and you're not trying top use the native pdf-like AI file directly), so if you're restricted by the database in use, it's your best alternative.

Regarding the explicit errors that you are reporting, is that happening consistently or only with a few graphics? Looking at the opening error, is this correctly copied as having the double quotes inside of the path string is not valid. Also, the invalid page name message looks really weird, as FM uses the page numbers as the names when creating the postscript. Are you using the AdobePDF printer as your system default in the FM sessions, are you creating the PDF using the SaveAsPDF route or printing to PDF or printing to ps & distilling? Are you using the CMYK or RGB option if you are going the SaveAsPDF route?

[Gary1606]

Hi Arnis,

The error message: 'Error EF get textframe on page with name - Invalid page identifier' was produced 5 times, so we substituted the PDF image files one at a time with a jpeg image, each time a PDF file was substituted we got one less error message, when all the PDF's were replaced there were no errors and the document printed to PDF.

Due to our customer deadline I have exported the PDF images as jpegs and imported them into the publication.

On reflection I believe that the problem is the image size which is in this instance 200 x 165 mm, we normally supply images to fit an A4, A5 and A3 landscape page. The problem pdf images were used in an existing publication that uses a 200 x 165 mm image frame. As I have stated everything looks fine until we try to print to pdf, for some reason Framemaker works OK when the 200 x 165 mm pdf's are replaced with jpegs or tifs of the same image size 200 x 165 mm but we get errors when pdf images are used.

We have convinced our IT dept to now investigate the problem as we can not explain why this is happening.

Thank you for your time and help with this problem, if we discover the cause of the problem I will update this thread.

Cheers

Gary B.

[Arnis_Gubins]

I suspect that it isn't the size, but rather something within the PDF (i.e. how it was created). I've used full page 8.5x11 PDF graphics in catalogs that I generate for clients without issues.

Have you manually tried creating a PDF from a dummy FM document using one of these errant PDFs? Have you tried opening the PDF in Acrobat and doing a SaveAs to ensure it's clean?

[Gary1606]

I have opened the PDFs in Acrobat and re-saved them but the problem still persists.

I work in the Aerospace industry and there is quite a high level of security involved in our work and procedures, all of the applications that we use are tested and often modified in some way by a third party company that we use before being installed onto our PCs and networks. We now believe that it must be some kind of modification to Framemaker that is causing the problem with the PDF format using this particular frame size/page layout/sgml tagging etc. We have had problems in the past with an altered version of Acrobat 9 that we used and earlier versions of Framemaker.

Our IT dept are now in contact with the third party software developers to try and resolve this issue for us.

Thanks again

Gary B.

[Gary1606 · Accepted solution]

Problem solved.

The software company have resolved the PDF problem, there was a issue with the coding when PDF images were used for a particular frame size document that we use for maintenance procedures. The issue did not arise when any other image format was used only PDFs. Due to legacy data, images, databases and security reasons a number of the applications we use have had some recoding and unfortunately this causes us quite a few problems until the bugs are sorted out.

[Arnis_Gubins]

Glad it worked out for you and that it wasn't an FM or Illustrator issue.

[ReactionAtWork]

I am having exactly the same problem [EDIT: or was, go straight to *** Solution *** below!]. I recently upgraded from TCS 3.0 to TCS 2015, and had no issues printing my documents in TCS 3.0. I have a FrameMaker document that contains linked PDF files. These PDF files were created in Illustrator CS6, and Saved As... PDF from Illustrator. The Illustrator file consists of vector lines and text, with imported PNG images.

In each case using the Adobe PDF (default) printer:

• If I import a PNG file into FrameMaker document, and print to PDF, the PDF file is generated from FrameMaker almost instantaneously.
• If I import a PDF file (saved out by Illustrator) that contains only vector artwork, the PDF file is generated from FrameMaker almost instantaneously.
• If I import a PDF file (saved out by Illustrator) that contains the vector artwork and small PNG files, the PDF file is very slow to appear (about a minute for a single page FM file with a single PDF file).
• If I import a PDF file (saved out by Illustrator) that contains the vector artwork and larger PNG files, the PDF file takes several minutes to appear.
• Changing the PNG files in Illustrator for TIF makes no difference, so it's not a PNG problem.
• If I print the Illustrator file directly from Illustrator to the Adobe PDF Printer, the file appears almost instantaneously.
• All other applications (e.g. Word) can print to the Adobe PDF printer and produce graphics-rich documents in seconds.
• I have uninstalled TCS2015, uninstalled Reader, cleaned the registry with CCleaner. I then reinstalled only Adobe Acrobat DC. Then separately I installed the rest of the TCS 2015 Suite. The problem persists.
• I have tried all the obscure Adobe PDF Printer setting suggested by Dov Isaacs (?) in other threads concerning similar problems.

*** Solution ***
My IT department had also recently installed the low-quality "Microsoft Security Essentials" as a stop gap solution while they decided on a proper AV tool. As a last ditch hope I went to Essentials' settings panel and turned off 'real-time protection'. Almost immediately my manual, that had already taken 58 minutes printing, suddenly finished in seconds. Sure enough, further on/off tests with other 'problem' FrameMaker files revealed that Microsoft Security Essentials' real-time protection was taking an extremely unhealthy interest in the very particular processes involved in PDF'ing the specific file type highlighted above. So I added FrameMaker.exe and AcroDist.exe to its list of 'excluded processes' and now, even with real-time protection turned on, normal print speed has returned. Hope this helps someone else one day 🙂