RE. Don't install Frame 8 If You PDF Your Books

[Valerie Lipow]

Tony,

I recommend that you give feedback to Adobe about the knowledge level of
your Tech Support Representative. Like you, when I first ran up against this
Book>PDF glitch in FrameMaker 8, I submitted an online support request, and
the response I received from Adobe was boilerplate, and completely useless
and off-point.

I got this solution from someone on either the Framers or the
framemaker-dita listservs, and I applied it, to my great relief.

Then I contacted Adobe Tech Support by phone. I wanted to confirm that the
Tagged PDF strategy was not just a fluke that would work once. I was placed
on hold for nearly an hour, but I was working while waiting, so I waited.

During this time, I emailed RJ Jacquez, the Adobe Chief FrameMaker
"Evangelist" (Adobe-speak for lead FM marketing representative). Despite
such a ludicrously overstated job title (would any tech writer - er,
"information architect" - make up such a thing?), RJ responded very quickly
and professionally, and he told me he would take my concerns up the chain.
(Recently, I had the chance to complete an online "satisfaction" survey for
Adobe, and I told them again about my experience.)

Finally, the TSR picked up the phone, and he verified that the Tagged PDF
option was the only known workaround for this known FM 8.0 bug.

I am waiting eagerly for the patch.

Knowing that not all FrameMaker TSRs know about this problem and its
workaround, I feel very fortunate getting the TSR I spoke with.

RJ, I know you're out there, lurking. Please carry the message to someone
who has the power to change things that Adobe FrameMaker Tech Support is not
serving its customers well.

Val
Brendan Technologies, Inc.
Carlsbad, CA


On 9/14/07, Tony Marek <tony.marek at pdf.com> wrote:
>
>  Hi Valerie --
>
> You're right, I'm happy to say. Thanks very much for setting me on the
> right path.  I'm also happy to say that it wasn't me who was wrong but my
> Adobe Tech Support Technician. He specifically told me there is no fix for
> this and that I have no alternative but to go back to Frame 7.1.
>
> But before I resorted to reinstalling 7.1 I got your post and went into
> the Print Book > PDF Setup dialog > Tags tab. I selected the Generate Tagged
> PDF option and set up the Include Paragraphs list to match my Bookmarks
> paragraph list. I don't actually know what this function is about, but it
> resulted in generating a postscript file for my book which Distiller could
> successfully distill. All cross-refs in the book's PDF file seem to work
> now.
>
> Previous to selecting "Generate Tagged PDF", all I got from my attempts to
> distill the PostScript from a full book was an error text message -- no PDF
> file. PDFing my individual chapter files was working. But with no way to PDF
> my full book, I was stuck.
>
> I have filed two Online Support requests with Adobe, and received no
> replies to date. One is a week old and the promised response time is 24
> hours. So, the moral of my story is: Frame 8 is damaged. Adobe Tech Support
> is broken.
>
> Tony
> >>
> Wrong! FrameMaker 8 DOES make PDFs with cross-references.
>
> What you need to do is to create the Acrobat settings to Generate Tagged
> PDF.
>
> Until Adobe creates a patch, to generate PDF in 8, you must check Yes in
> the Generate Acrobat Data > PDF Setup... > Links >Generate Tagged PDF
> section of the File > Print Book window.
>
> This a known bug.
>
> Val
> --
> Valerie Lipow
> vallipow at gmail.com
>
> On 9/14/07, Tony Marek <tony.marek at pdf.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >    There's a critical bug in Frame 8, which I just spent an afternoon
> > and
> >    morning tracking down on my own and with some questionable help from
> >    Adobe Tech Support (30 min. phone wait once they put me in the
> >    queue).  Frame 8 cannot currently create a PDF file for an entire
> > book
> >    if there are cross-references within the document. PDFing works
> >    chapter by chapter, but not for an entire book. The tech support guy
> > I
> >    just got off the phone with, after some asking around while I held
> > for
> >    another 10 minutes, discovered that this is the current situation and
> >    there's no workaround. (Why he did not already know I don't know.) So
> >    Frame 8 is useless for PDFing any books that contains cross-refs --
> >    e.g. all the books my group publishes.
> >    I've unistalled 7.1 already and now have to reinstall -- and save my
> >    Frame 8 files to Frame 7.
> >    I await the patch that fixes this but the Adobe tech would not
> > predict
> >    when that would be.  On top of that, there is Nothing posted on this
> >    in the Adobe Support site.
> >    Adobe is officially too big. They've become MicroSoft.
> >
>
>
>
>
>
>