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IE7 casualty > Acrobat Distiller 5.05

Discussion in 'Internet Explorer & Microsoft Edge' started by Christer, 2006/12/30.

  1. 2006/12/30
    Christer

    Christer Geek Member Staff Thread Starter

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    Hello all!

    Our flying club use Microsoft Access XP (2002) to manage member accounts and aircraft/glider log books. Access generates several reports and they are converted to *.pdf by printing to Acrobat Distiller 5.0. Since I upgraded to IE7, this no longer works. No *.pdf gets generated but a logfile (an example is attached).

    I have verified that IE7 and its new printing capabilities is the culprit. I use Ghost for backup and prior to upgrading from IE6 to IE7, i created an image of the system partition. After upgrading to IE7, I created a new image. The only difference between these two images is IE6/IE7. If I restore the "IE6 image ", Acrobat Distiller works. If I restore the "IE7 image ", Acrobat Distiller does not work but produces an error log.

    I don't know if it is the same situation with more recent versions of Acrobat. This is the only task I have for Acrobat and I have no intentions of shelling out more money on an upgrade but I hope that a MS fix is forthcoming.

    Christer
     
    Christer,
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  2. 2006/12/30
    Christer

    Christer Geek Member Staff Thread Starter

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    I have tested creating *.pdf from within Excel, PowerPoint and Word using PDFMaker 5.0 and it still works. That option is not available in Access and printing to Distiller is the only method ... :mad: ... which fails.

    Christer
     
    Christer,
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  4. 2006/12/30
    Bill Castner

    Bill Castner Inactive

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    Bill Castner,
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  5. 2006/12/30
    Christer

    Christer Geek Member Staff Thread Starter

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    Thanks Bill,
    my mistake to specify 5.0, that update has been applied making it 5.05.

    I have adjusted the thread title.

    Christer
     
    Christer,
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  6. 2006/12/30
    Bill Castner

    Bill Castner Inactive

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    Would you accept a freeware Distiller alternative?
    http://www.pdfforge.org/products/pdfcreator

    I am a bit concerned as Adobe has stated that only Adobe Acrobat 8 (or higher revision levels) is compatible with IE 7.

    Moreover, it is odd that it happens only to Access, not other Office Products.
    So the victim here is Access 2002 and why I do not know.
    My own temptation would be to upgrade Access. It is likely an interaction of some form with Office overall, and a pre-level Office Suite version of Access being used.
     
    Last edited: 2006/12/30
    Bill Castner,
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  7. 2006/12/31
    Christer

    Christer Geek Member Staff Thread Starter

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    I don't think that PDFMaker (the icon in the tool bar in Excel, PowerPoint and Word) is the same application as Acrobat Distiller (print > Acrobat Distiller).

    Your assumption that the problem is with Access prompted me to print a document to Distiller from Word and it worked. I went back to Access and tried to print a different document to Distiller ... :eek: ... and it worked. It seems like the fancy page layout of the glider log books is the problem. If I can figure it out, the problem is solved.

    I do, however, still feel that it is a IE7 triggered problem and I will install and try the freeware PDFCreator (thanks for the link) before messing with the page layout.

    Christer
     
    Christer,
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  8. 2006/12/31
    Christer

    Christer Geek Member Staff Thread Starter

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    The freeware PDFCreator did produce a *.pdf document but it didn't get it right. The "fancy layout" is clearly the problem and I assume for Acrobat Distiller as well. Have a look at the attached documents which are extracts from the full documents.

    I wonder how/why the upgrade to IE7 can cause this when IE7 is not involved in the print process (Access > print > Acrobat Distiller).

    I will leave home in an hour or so and will not be back until 2007 to continue my efforts.

    Christer
     
    Christer,
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  9. 2007/01/01
    Bill Castner

    Bill Castner Inactive

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    My experience with Adobe products when the underlying application changes, e.g. any Office product, is to uninstall and reinstall after the upgrade.

    For my IE7 installs I uninstall Reader, for example.
    Install IE7, then check for Reader updates. Then reinstall.
     
    Bill Castner,
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  10. 2007/01/01
    Christer

    Christer Geek Member Staff Thread Starter

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    Uninstalled and reinstalled Acrobat but the situation is the same.

    I removed the vertically oriented text labels in the document header and after that, it printed OK to Distiller. I went google on the error message and there were a few hits. They were a mix of possible/probable reasons, such as fonts and text orientation. They applied to more recent versions of Acrobat too.

    Christer
     
    Christer,
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  11. 2007/01/01
    Bill Castner

    Bill Castner Inactive

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    IE 7 does do some font fiddling. That would be my guess based on your research.

    Does distiller use IE? My guess is that it uses some IE dlls, and this is fairly common. (the shell media viewer DLL would be one guess; this is often used as rasterization engine).

    (And if you use the vertical labels again, rotate them 180 Degrees, or enter them backwards: enalpria or something so that they read more easily for those used to left to right scanning. For all I know all aircraft logs are written that way, but it is hard unless you know the columns to read).
     
    Bill Castner,
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  12. 2007/01/01
    Christer

    Christer Geek Member Staff Thread Starter

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    I have searched but not found an option to rotate 180 degrees. Entering them backwards would not increase the readability.

    Christer
     
    Christer,
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  13. 2007/01/01
    Bill Castner

    Bill Castner Inactive

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    Okay then.

    It likely is just a preference of mine as to readability.
     
    Bill Castner,
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  14. 2007/01/02
    Christer

    Christer Geek Member Staff Thread Starter

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    I went to Adobes site and registered for download of the most recent version of Acrobat. A swedish version was not yet available, the english version had to do.

    I uninstalled Acrobat 5 and installed Acrobat 8 with a thirty days trial period. As an introduction at the beginning of the installation, compatible software was listed. It is "every Office application from 2000 vintage and newer" and in addition to that, IE6 and IE7.

    A difference that I noticed is the added button in IE7 which converts the current webpage to PDF. Quite nice feature, actually.

    Another difference is added buttons in Access with the same functions as the buttons in Excel, PowerPoint and Word.

    Did it convert my report to PDF? No and neither did it by "Print to Adobe PDF" (not "Print to Distiller" anymore)!

    Did it convert my report to PDF after changing the vertically oriented text labels to horizontal? Yes, and by "Print to Adobe PDF" too!

    It seems like it has nothing to do with Acrobat 5 being obsolete and no, I haven't tested Acrobat 8 with IE6.

    Christer
     
    Christer,
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  15. 2008/05/20
    Christer

    Christer Geek Member Staff Thread Starter

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    An update on the issue:

    I have a spare HDD to play with and I have installed XP with SP3 slipstreamed, Office XP with SP3 slipstreamed and Internet Explorer 7. Everything has been updated (high priority updates only), one for IE7 and seventeen for Office.

    I have acquired an upgrade from Acrobat 5.0 to Acrobat 6.0 which I promptly installed and updated to version 6.0.6.

    Was I lucky? No I wasn't! It still errors on the vertically oriented text ... :rolleyes: ... which means that IE7 is again destined for the bin.

    Christer

    Edited: I forgot to mention that the HP 930c printer driver is out of the picture and cannot interfere (if it ever could but strange things happen).
     
    Christer,
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  16. 2008/05/21
    Arie

    Arie Administrator Administrator Staff

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    My choice would be to bin Acrobat instead!
     
    Arie,
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  17. 2008/05/22
    Christer

    Christer Geek Member Staff Thread Starter

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    Arie,
    why would I do that when IE7 is the problem? I will do a test installation of Firefox and I bet that Acrobat Distiller will be unaffected!

    Christer
     
    Christer,
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  18. 2008/05/25
    Christer

    Christer Geek Member Staff Thread Starter

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    FYI,
    I installed Firefox and Thunderbird. Acrobat 6.0.6 creates all PDF:s without a trace of a problem!

    Christer
     
    Christer,
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  19. 2009/05/15
    Christer

    Christer Geek Member Staff Thread Starter

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    If I recall correctly, I have discussed this situation in other threads after trying IE8 with the same results. Since this is the original thread, I post an update including SUCCESS!

    I decided to use a freeware PDF creator and installed IE8 (the final release). I installed a number of freeware PDF creators to test, rolling back using Ghost in between. When I installed "Bullzip PDF Printer ", it didn't get the vertical labels right, they were garbled. However, when I tried Adobe Acrobat 6.0.6 ... :eek: ... it worked! I uninstalled "Bullzip PDF Printer" and ... :confused: ... Adobe Acrobat 6.0.6 still worked!

    To get it "clean ", I rolled back using Ghost, installed "Bullzip PDF Printer" but not "gslite" (the necessary ghostscript). I immediately uninstalled "Bullzip PDF Printer" and deleted a few folders and files left behind. The traces of "Bullzip PDF Printer" in the registry were four entries which I left alone since they possibly were the key to the success.

    A difference I noticed when installing "Bullzip PDF Printer" compared to installing any other freeware PDF creator was that during the installation of "Bullzip PDF Printer ", the spool service was stopped and restarted three times. It did something good ... :D ... !

    Abobe Acrobat 6.0.6. can now print vertical labels with IE8 installed and I bet it works with IE7 as well.

    Christer
     
    Christer,
    #18

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