PDFs corrupted by PDF Commenting

[Shlomo Perets]

Joseph,

You wrote:

>I've run into a somewhat odd problem with PDF commenting. Here's how I have
>developers review my documents.
>
>1. Generate PDFs from framemaker.
>2. Enable PDFs for commenting in acrobat reader
>3. Make PDFs accessible to all stakeholders on a network share.
>
>Recently, several people have complained that when they try to make comments
>in the PDF, the PDF becomes corrupted and they can't use it anymore. I am
>using TCS 2.0. I have acrobat professional pro extended v9.3.1. I know some
>users have slightly older versions. One user has acrobat reader 9.2.1. Is it
>possible that this versioning difference is causing this problem? Has anyone
>else encountered something like this? If so, how did you address it? I am
>planning on requesting that everyone update to the latest version of acrobat
>reader. However, I am surprised that such a slight difference in version
>would cause such havoc.

One of my clients reported the same problem. Reverting to Adobe Reader 8 
for reviews seemed to solve the problem.

An immediate workaround when someone comes across this problem is as follows:
1. Do not close the corrupt PDF
2. Export comments by selecting Acrobat Comments > Export Comment to Data File
     (the exported comments (fdf file) can also be sent to you)
3. Re-open the original file and save with a different name
4. Import the comments into the new copy by selecting Comments > Import 
comments.
5. Save the file.

It is possible that this problem is also related to the way Acrobat saves 
changes to a PDF. Essentially, all changes are accumulated in a way that 
does not remove editing history ("incremental save"). Using the "Save As" 
function, overwriting the same name, removes all editing history and 
rewrites the entire file (which is why "Save As" is slower than "Save"). I 
recommend that your editors do a "Save As" once in a while -- you may find 
that this alone will resolve the problem.

Please share your results, as this is an issue that other uses have 
encountered.

[ Older Adobe installers may be found at ftp://ftp.adobe.com/pub/adobe/ ; 
select the product, platform, version number, and localized version (where 
applies).
For example: ftp://ftp.adobe.com/pub/adobe/reader/win/8.x/8.2/enu/ ]


Shlomo Perets

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