Preparing PDFs with Distiller

[Colman Stephenson]

Can anybody help?

I have recently purchased Distiller 5.0 but I am unable to produce PDFs from VectorWorks.

Postscript files which are generated from VW (either through LaserWriter or AdobePS) fail with the error message given at the end of this post.

The problem is specific to VW. All other applications are fine.

I have tried with the option "Print Postscript only" checked and unchecked.

I have tried using the virtual printer and using the "create Adobe PDF option".

I am using OS9.0.4 on iMac with 96Mb

Thanks in advance to anyone who help cure this problem.

Colman Stephenson

Julian Harrap Architects, London UK

--------

This is a typical error message :

%%[ Error: limitcheck; OffendingCommand: findfont ]%%

Stack:

/Font

/Times-Roman

/f14

%%[ Flushing: rest of job (to end-of-file) will be ignored ]%%

%%[ Warning: PostScript error. No PDF file produced. ] %%

[Matthew Giampapa]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Colman Stephenson:

Can anybody help?

I have recently purchased Distiller 5.0 but I am unable to produce PDFs from VectorWorks.

Postscript files which are generated from VW (either through LaserWriter or AdobePS) fail with the error message given at the end of this post.

The problem is specific to VW. All other applications are fine.

I have tried with the option "Print Postscript only" checked and unchecked.

I have tried using the virtual printer and using the "create Adobe PDF option".

I am using OS9.0.4 on iMac with 96Mb

Thanks in advance to anyone who help cure this problem.

Colman Stephenson

Julian Harrap Architects, London UK

--------

This is a typical error message :

%%[ Error: limitcheck; OffendingCommand: findfont ]%%

Stack:

/Font

/Times-Roman

/f14

%%[ Flushing: rest of job (to end-of-file) will be ignored ]%%

%%[ Warning: PostScript error. No PDF file produced. ] %%

---

I believe that error simply mean that the system is not locating your Times New Roman font file. While I am not familiar with Distiller version 5, in version 4 you could set it to ignore font errors .

1. In Acrobat Distiller, choose Settings > Job Options.

2. Click the Fonts tab.

3. From the When Embedding Fails pop-up menu, choose either Warn And Continue or Ignore. With either option, Acrobat Distiller will substitute the font and continue processing. If you choose Warn and Continue, Acrobat Distiller will notify you that it cannot embed a given font.

[Colman Stephenson]

Thanks for that suggestion but I'm afraid it didn't work.

Version 5.0 has the same font warning options. Mine were alread set to "Warn and Continue". Nevertheless I switched it to "Ignore" and I continued to have the same problem.

In any case the problem does not occur with other applications, which is why I suspect VW, although I know other people produce PDFs from VW all the time.

Your input is much appreciated in any event.

Colman Stephenson

[Matthew Giampapa]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Colman Stephenson:

Thanks for that suggestion but I'm afraid it didn't work.

Version 5.0 has the same font warning options. Mine were alread set to "Warn and Continue". Nevertheless I switched it to "Ignore" and I continued to have the same problem.

In any case the problem does not occur with other applications, which is why I suspect VW, although I know other people produce PDFs from VW all the time.

Your input is much appreciated in any event.

Colman Stephenson

---

Sorry to hear that, well the only other thing I would probably try, is to use the Desktop Printer Utility, to create a translator... a driver that just outputs to the file. Since this is really just based on the Laserwriter 8 dirver, I think its just another way of doing somthign you already tried.

Well anyway, be sure to try and set it to not incude fonts, and also try a level 1 postscript file. These options can be found in the "save as file" option of the print dialog pulldown.

[Robert Nichols]

Sorry if this sounds annoying, but I'm used to solving many distiller errors by allocating more memory to the app. I used to try and interpret the problem and isolate the source, but more often than not, adding a few mb's of ram allocation to distiller would fix it. I beg your pardon if you've already tried this...

For what it's worth, I have no problem with distiller, even when fonts are "not found." Perhaps there is a distiller job setting that would opt for more tolerant behaviour if a font is not found.

[Colman Stephenson]

Robert

Thanks for your suggestions

Unfortunately I have tried raising the allocated RAM to 60Mb and still no luck. Thanks for the suggestion though.

For what it is worth, here is another error message I get. The error takes place very early on in the distillation and once again, it is unique to VW.

Colman Stephenson

%%[ Error: invalidaccess; OffendingCommand: def; ErrorInfo: CharOffsets

[Matthew Giampapa]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Donald Wardlaw:

What has worked for me is to use the Adobe PS driver, much as a previous post suggested. Make sure you have the latest one from the Adobe site. I'm getting good reliable results with it.

donald

---

Well since you have already purchased Adobe Acrobat, throwing more $ at the problem may not be the best thing to tell you. However there is always the shareware PrintToPDF which can be found at http://www.jwwalker.com

[Donald Wardlaw]

What has worked for me is to use the Adobe PS driver, much as a previous post suggested. Make sure you have the latest one from the Adobe site. I'm getting good reliable results with it.

donald

[dlstudios]

I have occasionally run into similar errors and have managed to narrow the problem down to a couple of fonts - but only when they are included in a worksheet. If you have a worksheet on the sheet you are trying to print try changing the fonts, especially any bold fonts. I've had not further problems.