PDFMaker Template - Opinions?

[The Terminator]

The recent issue of Macworld had an article about optimizing PDF files, and
one of the suggestions was to remove the PDFMaker templates from Office. The
author didn¹t say why, but I was wondering what people on think ­ should the
PDFMaker toolbar be deleted from Office applications? Does it use up copious
amounts of memory, does it make the Office applications slower, etc?

 

[Jason Morse]

The recent issue of /Macworld/ had an article about optimizing PDF
files, and one of the suggestions was to remove the PDFMaker templates
from Office. The author didn’t say why, but I was wondering what people
on think – should the PDFMaker toolbar be deleted from Office
applications? Does it use up copious amounts of memory, does it make the
Office applications slower, etc?

The author does mention why -- the Adobe toolbar can become corrupt and
cause slowdowns in Excel. I haven't used it myself, so I can't confirm
or deny.

But I think the key is that since you can "Save as PDF" without the
Adobe toolbar, there's little use for it anyway.

-Jason

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

The author does mention why -- the Adobe toolbar can become corrupt and
cause slowdowns in Excel. I haven't used it myself, so I can't confirm
or deny.

I've never noticed coruption, but I sure have seen slowdowns in launch
times (huge slowdowns).
Beside that, there is nothing in this toolbar you couldn't do through
the virtual printer in the print pane, so it really isn't useful at all.

But I think the key is that since you can "Save as PDF" without the
Adobe toolbar, there's little use for it anyway.

I couldn't agree more. As I was saying, not only can you save as PDF
without it, but you can also access all the optimization settings from
the print pane.

Corentin

 

[Phillip M. Jones, CE.T.]

The recent issue of /Macworld/ had an article about optimizing PDF
files, and one of the suggestions was to remove the PDFMaker templates
from Office. The author didn’t say why, but I was wondering what people
on think – should the PDFMaker toolbar be deleted from Office
applications? Does it use up copious amounts of memory, does it make the
Office applications slower, etc?

For Mac Use definitely!

On OS9 the only thin it does is cause Word, Excel, PowerPoint 5 minutes
to load. ON OSX it will grind to 85% when you choose it then stop dead
in its tracks and if you let it it will sit till the cows jump over the
moon. if you click on the icon in the Dock That indicates its
processing, it just quits with no errors. It is a complete waste of
engineering design. The Engineer that designed it should either be sent
back school or Fired, It never has worked and never ever will work.

It just as easy to use either Acrobat adobe PDF Print Driver or even use
OSX's built in ability to create PDF's (though using this method will
create PDF's 10 times as large.

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[Gene van Troyer]

It just as easy to use either Acrobat adobe PDF Print Driver or even use
OSX's built in ability to create PDF's (though using this method will
create PDF's 10 times as large.

I haven't seen it that bad since OSX 10.3 came out, but the OSX PDF's are
certainly larger. Since I have Acrobat 6 Pro, I just use it to optimize the
files (but I leave fonts embedded, to assure that some of the special fonts
I have won't be substituted.

Gene van Troyer

 

[Alan Barwell]

I¹ve installed Acrobat and got this toolbar, and I¹m in agreement with quite
a few people here ­ it¹s of no use. How do I get rid of it?? I can turn it
off using View>Toolbars but it comes back whenever I relaunch Excel. How can
I get rid of it permanently?

Thanks for your help.

 

[Beth Rosengard]

Hi Alan,

J.E. McGimpsey came up with this workaround:

1. In the Finder, do a "Find" for "PDFMaker". You will probably discover
These annoying files in three Startup folders (Word, Excel, PowerPoint),
namely PDFMaker.dot, PDFMaker.xla and PDFMaker.ppa Trash the files.

2. In place of each of them, create a new blank *folder* with the names,
respectively, of PDFMaker.dot, PDFMaker.xla and PDFMaker.ppa.

3. When you open Acrobat you may be told there is a discrepancy and asked
whether you want it repaired. Click "Don't ask me again" and "No" to the
repair question.

The result is that when you open Acrobat, it will "see" that you already
have a PDFMaker.dot or .xla in folder form and will not create another nor
overwrite what's there (since a file can't overwrite a folder).

--
***Please always reply to the newsgroup!***

Beth Rosengard
Mac MVP

Mac Word FAQ: <http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/index.htm>
Entourage Help Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org>

 

[Alan Barwell]

Thanks Beth and J.E. McGimpsey, that worked a treat!

 

[Rick Carlton]

J.E. McGimpsey came up with this workaround:

1. In the Finder, do a "Find" for "PDFMaker". You will probably discover
These annoying files in three Startup folders (Word, Excel, PowerPoint),
namely PDFMaker.dot, PDFMaker.xla and PDFMaker.ppa Trash the files.

2. In place of each of them, create a new blank *folder* with the names,
respectively, of PDFMaker.dot, PDFMaker.xla and PDFMaker.ppa.

3. When you open Acrobat you may be told there is a discrepancy and asked
whether you want it repaired. Click "Don't ask me again" and "No" to the
repair question.

The result is that when you open Acrobat, it will "see" that you already
have a PDFMaker.dot or .xla in folder form and will not create another nor
overwrite what's there (since a file can't overwrite a folder).

Beth,

Thanks for an excellent reference!

Ran the Office 2004 SP1 Updater today and everything worked great -
except afterword I kept getting a "compile error in hidden module :
autoexec" message in Excel and Word.

Turns out it was the PDF Maker, and your posting helped me deactivate it.

For good. ;-)

(It always seemed to clutter up the UI with a feature that - as many
have pointed out - is in the print dialog - anyway.)

Best,


Rick