PDF Printing in Mac Word

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

All:

Microsoft is looking for documents to test the fixes for the Microsoft Word
"Print to PDF" issue.

The specific issue being addressed is production of multiple PDF jobs when
printing to PDF".

Microsoft's Software Engineer in Test Ritika Pathak has asked me to ask you
for some samples they can use to verify that the issue is fixed in an
upcoming release.

If you have documents that display the issue, and you are willing to share
them (with complete confidentiality assured) with the Microsoft Macintosh
Business Unit Software Engineering Test Team, please email them directly to
me at this address.

If you include a valid email address I will be able to acknowledge each
contribution. If you don't hear from me, assume your document didn't arrive
and please re-send. NOTE: Plain text emails are best: HTML emails often
don't make it through the Spam filter, and they certainly won't if they also
contain URLs or pictures

Please do not attempt to post documents as attachments in this group: the
server won't accept them! And please send ONLY documents that display the
specific Print to PDF issue: we don't have the resources to look at any
others

NOTE: It pays to Zip or Stuff the documents first, to prevent damage in
transit over the internet.

Many thanks

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Business Analyst, Consultant
Technical Writer.
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410

 

[John McGhie]

All:

Please don't forget about this request: Microsoft really does need
documents that won't print without breaking.

Please send them to me at this email address.

Cheers

--

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. GMT + 10 Hrs

+61 4 1209 1410, <mailto:[email protected]> mailto:[email protected]

 

[Jon Bean]

John,
Are you aware new print issues associated with the most current update
release of Office. I've updated my iMac and MacBook and now neither of
them will print. Word and Excel will not print to my Epson, nor to PDF. The
Office package perform without issues prior to the update.
Thanks for helping if you can,
Jon

 

[John McGhie [MVP Word, Word Mac]]

Hi Jon:

No, we only have two or three users reporting the issue, we have no
information on the cause.

This is so rare and so sporadic that it has to be an issue specific to a
particular software confiduration.

If you care to hop into Activity Monitor, ps, or top and obtain a list of
the processes runing on your system, I can drop that off to the Mac BU
Testers and see if they can spot anything. This one is going to be
obscure -- seriously obscure -- so we will need massive detail to diagnose
it (no need to tell us what you ate for lunch, but we really need to know
the brand of cereal you had for breakfast...)

I was in Mac BU when 10.4.9 came out: it sailed through testing with no
issues. Since then, of all the millions of users who have 10.4.9 installed,
only three have come in here to say they can't print. Nearly all of the
MVPs in here are now up at 10.4.9 and none of them have the problem.

This has got to be an interaction between Office and some piece of software
that is rare and not made by either Microsoft or Apple (if it were, it would
be on every machine and we would have thousands of these reports...). In
fact, it's probably a particular configuration of a particular piece of
software that's doing it.

Email me the list when you get it, and I will pass it on.

Cheers

--

Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Sydney, Australia. S33°53'34.20 E151°14'54.50
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[falco]

If this issue has been solved meanwhile please let me know, otherwise I can
provide a document which shows exactly this behaviour: printing a Mac Word
document as PDF results in several ( in my case 7-9) different PDF files.

 

[John McGhie]

The issue has not been solved.

Apple blames Microsoft, Microsoft blames Apple, but neither of them are
going to fix it

We can replicate the issue at will: simply include section breaks in a
document, and make a change to the section properties (e.g. Margins or
orientation). Any time you cause a change to the dimensions or layout of
the "printed page", the Apple printing subsystem will start a new print job.

Cheers

If this issue has been solved meanwhile please let me know, otherwise I can
provide a document which shows exactly this behaviour: printing a Mac Word
document as PDF results in several ( in my case 7-9) different PDF files.

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Nhulunbuy, NT, Australia. S12.22.1918,E136.99.5392
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Links to utilities to merge the PDFs:
http://www.word.mvps.org/mac/MultiplePDFs.html

 

[Phillip Jones]

Actually the problem is with adobe and Acrobat. because there is no
other application for apple that has this problem with Office documents.

What the problem has been admitted to being is that there is so much
information in the Paragraph marks, Section, and page Break Marks That
Acrobat literally chokes on it. Of course no one officially at Adobe is
going to make such an admission. But there are many regulars, in the
Acrobat Group, who freely admit such.

best thing to do is go into Acrobat. then go into documents and choose
to insert pages then take the next section an repeat so on and so on.

The issue has not been solved.

Apple blames Microsoft, Microsoft blames Apple, but neither of them are
going to fix it

We can replicate the issue at will: simply include section breaks in a
document, and make a change to the section properties (e.g. Margins or
orientation). Any time you cause a change to the dimensions or layout of
the "printed page", the Apple printing subsystem will start a new print job.

Cheers

--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Phillip M. Jones, CET |LIFE MEMBER: VPEA ETA-I, NESDA, ISCET, Sterling
616 Liberty Street |Who's Who. PHONE:276-632-5045, FAX:276-632-0868
Martinsville Va 24112 |[email protected], ICQ11269732, AIM pjonescet
------------------------------------------------------------------------

If it's "fixed", don't "break it"!

mailto[email protected]

<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/default.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/90th_Birthday/index.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Fulcher/default.html>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Harris/default.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Jones/default.htm>

<http://www.vpea.org>

 

[Michel Bintener]

Hi Phillip,

no, that's not the case, at least not as far as this thread is concerned.
These separate print jobs also happen on machines which do not have any
Adobe products installed; it is caused by a bug that is triggered by the
information sent by Word to the Apple printing mechanism in the case of a
document with specific section breaks. For a more detailed explanation, read
John's post.

Actually the problem is with adobe and Acrobat. because there is no
other application for apple that has this problem with Office documents.

What the problem has been admitted to being is that there is so much
information in the Paragraph marks, Section, and page Break Marks That
Acrobat literally chokes on it. Of course no one officially at Adobe is
going to make such an admission. But there are many regulars, in the
Acrobat Group, who freely admit such.

best thing to do is go into Acrobat. then go into documents and choose
to insert pages then take the next section an repeat so on and so on.



--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Phillip M. Jones, CET |LIFE MEMBER: VPEA ETA-I, NESDA, ISCET, Sterling
616 Liberty Street |Who's Who. PHONE:276-632-5045, FAX:276-632-0868
Martinsville Va 24112 |[email protected], ICQ11269732, AIM pjonescet
------------------------------------------------------------------------

If it's "fixed", don't "break it"!

mailto[email protected]

<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/default.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/90th_Birthday/index.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Fulcher/default.html>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Harris/default.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Jones/default.htm>

<http://www.vpea.org>

--
Michel Bintener
Microsoft MVP
Office:Mac (Entourage & Word)

*** Please always reply to the newsgroup. ***

 

[Phillip Jones]

You have to remember that OSX use a version of the PDF rendering engine
licensed from Adobe. that how you can create Pdf's of documents within
the the Print menu.

So while you don't Officially have any adobe Acrobat or Reader Products
on you do have adobe designed rendering engine. I have for testing
purposes Mariner software, and even some version of open Office and I
have no problem what so ever with those products printing a multi page
document. With or without any type of breaks.

Heck even WordPerfect 3.5e running in Classic prints perfect.


I don't have any problems with Office products either but avoid like a
Plague, using section and Page Breaks in any longish documents I create.
if I need to go to another page I just hit return until I start at the
next page.

In the times that I dealt with documents that had section and Page
breaks I just put the pieces back together.

Hi Phillip,

no, that's not the case, at least not as far as this thread is concerned.
These separate print jobs also happen on machines which do not have any
Adobe products installed; it is caused by a bug that is triggered by the
information sent by Word to the Apple printing mechanism in the case of a
document with specific section breaks. For a more detailed explanation, read
John's post.

--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Phillip M. Jones, CET |LIFE MEMBER: VPEA ETA-I, NESDA, ISCET, Sterling
616 Liberty Street |Who's Who. PHONE:276-632-5045, FAX:276-632-0868
Martinsville Va 24112 |[email protected], ICQ11269732, AIM pjonescet
------------------------------------------------------------------------

If it's "fixed", don't "break it"!

mailto[email protected]

<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/default.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/90th_Birthday/index.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Fulcher/default.html>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Harris/default.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Jones/default.htm>

<http://www.vpea.org>

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Phillip:

You mucky pup!!! Carriage-returns indeed

Page breaks are perfectly safe for this purpose, they won't create new print
jobs. It's only section breaks that do that.

You can also use the Paragraph Property "Page Break Before" with perfect
safety.

It's only section breaks that cause the problem, because the print engine
thinks you are going to need a different sized piece of paper and so throws
a new job command...

Cheers

You have to remember that OSX use a version of the PDF rendering engine
licensed from Adobe. that how you can create Pdf's of documents within
the the Print menu.

So while you don't Officially have any adobe Acrobat or Reader Products
on you do have adobe designed rendering engine. I have for testing
purposes Mariner software, and even some version of open Office and I
have no problem what so ever with those products printing a multi page
document. With or without any type of breaks.

Heck even WordPerfect 3.5e running in Classic prints perfect.


I don't have any problems with Office products either but avoid like a
Plague, using section and Page Breaks in any longish documents I create.
if I need to go to another page I just hit return until I start at the
next page.

In the times that I dealt with documents that had section and Page
breaks I just put the pieces back together.



--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Phillip M. Jones, CET |LIFE MEMBER: VPEA ETA-I, NESDA, ISCET, Sterling
616 Liberty Street |Who's Who. PHONE:276-632-5045, FAX:276-632-0868
Martinsville Va 24112 |[email protected], ICQ11269732, AIM pjonescet
------------------------------------------------------------------------

If it's "fixed", don't "break it"!

mailto[email protected]

<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/default.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/90th_Birthday/index.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Fulcher/default.html>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Harris/default.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Jones/default.htm>

<http://www.vpea.org>

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Nhulunbuy, NT, Australia. S12.22.1918,E136.99.5392
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]