Very slow when printing either to Adobe PDF or Print To File

[kblake2 at mmm.com]

Just a quick update. 

As it turns out, this issue was indeed related to the order of install for 
FM 9 and my version of Acrobat. When I reinstalled Acrobat, Save As PDF 
started working, and the Adobe PDF printer performance improved 
significantly. 

Thank you, Richard, for reminding me about Acrobat being installed last. 
That was the key. Thanks also to the other folks who responded with 
advice. 


Kathy Blake
3M Health Information Systems
Documentation Dept.
Tel:  801-265-4462



From:
"Combs, Richard" <richard.combs at Polycom.com>
To:
"'kblake2 at mmm.com'" <kblake2 at mmm.com>
Cc:
"framers at lists.frameusers.com" <framers at lists.frameusers.com>
Date:
04/22/2010 09:50 PM
Subject:
RE: Very slow when printing either to Adobe PDF or Print To File



kblake2 at mmm.com wrote:
 
> I haven't been very good about including all the relevant details in my
> responses. My coworker and I have been troubleshooting this together.
> When IT tried to help her, they uninstalled all of her printers,
> including Adobe PDF, then reinstalled all her printers, except for
> Adobe PDF. Now, she had never used Adobe PDF in the past, but the fact
> that it was now gone really perturbed her. She nagged IT and they
> didn't know how to get Adobe PDF back for her, so they told her to use
> PDFCreator instead, and it resulted in a drastic improvement in the
> speed of her PDF-making. That is why I also decided to install
> PDFCreator.

I'm copying the list in my reply because others may have more/better 
insights -- wisdom of the crowd, you know. 

I don't know anything about PDFCreator, but I'd be surprised if your 
coworker's PDFs weren't missing the features that the integration of 
Distiller with FM provides -- like working hyperlinks for 
cross-references, the TOC, and index, and bookmarks created from the 
paragraphs selected in FM's PDF Setup. 

Adobe PDF is a non-hardware-specific printer driver designed for creating 
PDFs. Using a hardware-specific printer driver (e.g., HP or Ricoh -- 
whatever your company uses as a physical printer) is a bad idea, as 
Adobe's Dov Isaacs and others have stated many times.
 
> Regarding the order of FM and Acrobat installs, I think you may be on
> to something. It hadn't dawned on me that when I installed FM 9 last
> year, I was installing it *after* Acrobat 8 which was installed 2 years
> ago. I'm wondering if that is what is causing my problems. I didn't
> start using FM 9 in any significant way until just a few weeks
> ago....very close to the time when our printers were switched out.
> Prior to that, I was using FM 7 with the previous printers, and now I
> find I have problems with both FM 7 and FM 9 as I use these new
> printers to make PDFs. Once again, I can make a PDF as always, it's
> just really, really slow now. I'm not convinced the new printer drivers
> innocent in all of this, but maybe it is a perfect storm of printer
> drivers and an Acrobat/FM problem. I'll have to see what I can do about
> reinstalling Acrobat. I'm in the middle of a release right now so I
> don't want to mess with stuff too much.
> 
> Regarding Adobe PDF, I do see it in my Printers and Faxes, and the port
> is indeed set to My Documents\*.pdf.
> 
> I really, really appreciate your insights. I'm a bit embarrassed to
> have used FM all these years yet still be ignorant of the inner
> workings. It has all worked flawlessly up to this point so I never had
> a reason to check under the hood.

If I were you, as soon as time permits, I'd reinstall Acrobat. And use 
Adobe PDF as the printer. That alone may solve the problem. 

I don't know if there are any issues or tips for using FM 9 with Acro 8 -- 
maybe someone else does. But you shouldn't be having problems with using 
FM 7 and Acro 8 -- as long as both are properly installed and you set your 
printer in FM to Adobe PDF. 

Good luck!

Richard G. Combs
Senior Technical Writer
Polycom, Inc.
richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom
303-223-5111
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rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom
303-903-6372
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