Having problems converting from powerpoint

[mviltan]

I'm using acrobat 5.05 and when i try to convert a powerpoint document it just says printing for ages.

the powerpoint file was pretty big so i opened up a new ppt and just typed in 1 word then saved it then tried to convert it. It worked but came up with this error:

%%[ ProductName: Distiller ]%%
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%%[ Error: ioerror; OffendingCommand: image; ErrorInfo: DCTDecodeFilter Source error or end in scan 0 8x8 block 564296 ]%%

Stack:
-dict-


%%[ Flushing: rest of job (to end-of-file) will be ignored ]%%
%%[ Warning: PostScript error. No PDF file produced. ] %%


can anyone help me?!

 

[Eggles]

How are you trying to create the PDF? If you try printing 'to file' by selecting a postscript printer to print to (preferably Distiller itself), can you generate a postscript file? If so, can you then open the PS file in Distiller and then make the PDF?

 

[mviltan]

when i go to file print it only has adobe pdf as an option!

the ppt has loads of images in it too.

 

[Eggles]

The error codes provided are the place to start.

The first one listed - the IO error - suggests an input/output error occurred. This may signal improperly terminated or faulty cables. So this is the fist thing to check.

The next error listed is an Offending Command:Image which points to a problem with one of the images in your file. You can check this if Powerpoint allows you to print jobs without the images. If the PostScript error doesn't occur then, you can start trying to locate the bad image. Set half of your images to non-printing and try printing again. Again halve the amount of images and print again and keep doing this until you locate the bad one. If PPT doesn't allow you to print without images (and it may not) then try deleting each image one at a time from the file and checking to see if this will allow you to make the PDF. If you find an image that is causing the problem then scan, edit or import the image again.


The third error listed is ErrorInfo: DCTDecodeFilter. Errors mentioning DCTdecodefilter point to problems decompressing an image, usually JPGs. In such cases, try using a non-compressed format for images e.g. TIF.

Working out problems with creating PDFs can be very complex, but the suggestions above have been derived from this website:

http://www.prepressure.com/ps/basics/basicinfo.htm

The fact that even a 1-word PPT file came up with an error indicates it may be the very first error that is causing the prtoblem i.e. faulty cabling, It may be worth reinstalling the Adobe PS printer driver again, presumably from the Acrobat CD.

 

[Eggles]

I am surprised you don't have Distiller as a choice under your list of printers. I would suggest again that you reinstall Acrobat.

From here:

http://www.rdpslides.com/psfaq/FAQ00008.htm

"If you own Acrobat (the full commercial product, not the free Reader) you can create PDFs from virtually any program that can print. Once you've installed Acrobat, you'll find that you have two new printer drivers, Distiller and PDFWriter.

Note: With Acrobat 5, you must choose a Custom Installation and specifically choose to install PDFWriter if you want to use it. In general, it's probably best not to bother with it."

PDFWriter is NOT suitable to use as a printer driver if the authoring application (in this case, PPT) contains lots of images.

 

[mviltan]

thanks for help. I think it was due to some corupt images. But becuase there are to many to delete one at a time, what we've done is saved the ppt as a bmp then converted it which seems to have worked.

I think this is due to some people having office 2000 and some xp and different sp levels but next week they'll all be on office xp sp3 so we'll be ok!

also i was using the 30 day trial version of acrobat 6 so thats why it may not have the distiller.