problems with Distiller 5 and Word 98

[fogharty]

This is what I had:

I have 4 desktop printers, all set up via the Chooser and selecting the
Laserwriter 8 icon. (Mac OS 9.2.2)

When I wanted to save a Word 98 doc to pdf, I would tell it to Print,
and then set "File" as my destination, and then under the "General"
menu I would select "Save as File" and select a destination and name
for the file. The selected printer is still one of those four that I
print from regularly.

Then Distiller would automatically launch, generate the pdf, and then
quit.

It's been working fine for at least 2-3 years.

Then Distiller wouldn't launch at all, either from within Word or on
its own, so I re-installed it. Now, have to create a different
desktop printer via the Chooser and Adobe PS, which in turn puts four
<i>more</i> desktop icons on my desktop, Create Adobe PDF, Acrobat PDF,
Virtual Printer, FrameMakerPDFWriter, none of which I want, and I can't
switch from printer to printer in my Print dialog anymore.

My question is: how do I get back to the way it was? Should I have
re-installed Acrobat 5 in its entirety, and not just Distiller? Is
there a setting in Word that I'm missing?

It's been so long since I set up my printers, I can't remember what I
did.

Any help would be greatly appreciated (and no, no plans to upgrade any
time soon. . .management is a bit stingy.)

 

[Tim Murray]

Try this:
- Remove the Virtual Printer extension and use Apple's Desktop Printer
Utility in its place. To create a PDF printer, choose the Translator, and
select the Distiller PPD.

- Make sure ATM loads last. Actually this one has never been a problem for
me, nor can I figure out why it would have an effect on printer instances,
but it's been reported as a fix several times.

 

[fogharty]

Sorry Tim,
It didn't work.
I created the new PDF printer, but Distill won't do anything (it
launches then quits without doing anything.)
I'll try re-insalling all of Acrobat again, maybe that will help.

 

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

Last time I had problems with Distiller, I cured it by turning OFF the
Antivirus. I subsequently sent a VERY rude letter to Norton. Which they
very rudely ignored...

--

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. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410

 

[fogharty]

Last time I had problems with Distiller, I cured it by turning OFF the
Antivirus. I subsequently sent a VERY rude letter to Norton. Which they
very rudely ignored...

Well, I don't have anything Nortons installed so that isn't it. I must
be doing something wrong in how I'm setting up the desktop printers.
Re-installing Acrobat didn't help either.

 

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

Listen closely to what Tim says, he's one of our resident Acrobat gurus...

--

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. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410

 

[fogharty]

Ok, I've re-installed Acrobat, removed the Virtual Printer extension,
don't have Nortons or ATM, used the Desktop Printer Utility, and
nothing seems to be working. I'm now at that point where I am wildly
downloading and uninstalling and reinstalling trying to achieve the
right mix of drivers and PPDs and gosh knows what else. I've even
found a backup to my System folder from December and replaced any
Preference files and the Printer descriptions that I thought were
relevnt, again to no use.

I can't decide if the problem lies with the way I'm setting up the
desktop printers, or with Distiller, or what. All I want to do is to
be able to turn my Word docs into pdfs just like I've been doing up
until a few days ago. Should I trash everything and start over? Or
would going to Word 2001 help me at all? (Again, no plans to upgrade my
computer to OSX for a while.)

Thank you for your advice so far, I'm just getting really frustrated
with this.

 

[Tim Murray]

Listen closely to what Tim says, he's one of our resident Acrobat gurus...

Umm, thanks, but lots of times I can't answer some questions because my
machines always seem to work correctly!

 

[Tim Murray]

I created the new PDF printer, but Distill won't do anything (it

launches then quits without doing anything.)

This is a key problem. When you say it launches, are you talking about
opening the Distiller application by itself, or are you taking about having
it automatically launch when it's called upon by another process.

If it's the former, then it points to some kind of systemic problem, such as
a defective font or font cache, or something worse. Try this: Search your
hard disk for ALL instances of files that start with AdobeFnt and end in
..lst. Delete all of the form AdobeFnt.lst, AdobeFnt**.lst, where ** are two
numbers. Do NOT delete AdobeFntComm.lst, AdobeFntSys.lst, or anything of
AdobeFnt followed by something nonnumeric. Reboot and see what happens

 

[fogharty]

Sorry, I'll try to be clearer (and calmer)

The first problem I had, a week or so ago, is that Distiller wouldn't
start up, launch, whatever, under any circumstances. It would freeze
while starting up, forcing me to reboot (trying to force-quit locked up
the whole computer.) So I reinstalled it, then I reinstalled Acrobat as
a whole, including Distiller (again).

I can now start up Distiller on its own and its sits there, patiently
waiting for me to do something with it. However, when I try to create
a pdf file from MS Word 98, if Distiller is already running, nothing
happens. If Distiller is not running, and I tell Word to create a pdf,
Distiller will launch, do nothing, and quit automatically.

I think you're right, that this all started with a bad font problem. I
did a search and removed the files you've suggested. But still I can't
get back to where I was, (being able to use my Print command from Word
and instead of printing, save the file as a pdf.) The choices are
available (Destination: File, Save as File, etc. but nothing happens.)
I've tried saving documents as a ps file first, but that's not working
either.

So reinstalling Distiller broke some mysterious connection with the
printer that I have not been able to recreate, I think. I connect with
the printers via AppleTalk.

Is there anymore info I can give?

I do appreciate all your help, this has been the most helpful tech
group that I have ever used.

Thanks

 

[Tim Murray]

I can now start up Distiller on its own and its sits there, patiently

waiting for me to do something with it. However, when I try to create
a pdf file from MS Word 98, if Distiller is already running, nothing
happens. If Distiller is not running, and I tell Word to create a pdf,
Distiller will launch, do nothing, and quit automatically.

Try creating a PS file from Word, and distilling it manually. When you create
your file, choose ... Lord, I've forgotten the standard OS9 name ... I think
it's just Acrobat Distiller ... choose the Acrobat Distiller printer
instance. If you don't have one, let us know.

I think you're right, that this all started with a bad font problem. I
did a search and removed the files you've suggested. But still I can't
get back to where I was, (being able to use my Print command from Word
and instead of printing, save the file as a pdf.) The choices are
available (Destination: File, Save as File, etc. but nothing happens.)
I've tried saving documents as a ps file first, but that's not working
either.

Here, you would Save as File of type PS file. If you select this an nothing
happens at all, then it's back to something wrong at the core of the OS.

So reinstalling Distiller broke some mysterious connection with the
printer that I have not been able to recreate, I think. I connect with
the printers via AppleTalk.

I use the Desktop Printer utility, and for any given printer, use the
appropriate PPD file.

 

[fogharty]

Tim. . .It works!

... choose the Acrobat Distiller printer instance. If you don't have

one, let us know.


Acrobat Distiller wasn't showing up. Finally in a fit of dispair I
reinstalled Word 98 (being sure to save my templates). Used a different
installer for Acrobat that I got from our IS guy (same version,
different registration number), cleaned up the font files again,
rebuilt the desktop, held my breath, made a few pagan sacrifices, and
it worked! Finally I am able to create pdf files once more!

I think it all came back to the corrupted fonts. If I had just taken
care of that first, and not deleted applications and files willy-nilly
I wouldn't have caused all those other problems.

Thanks for all your help. Next time I have a problem, I'll come here
before I do anything I might regret.

Fogharty