Quark 6 suddenly refuses to "Export to PDF" 1

[gennaria]

I have Quark 6 installed on approx 20 Macs (OS 10.2.6). Most of these Macs are happily exporting pdfs using the Quark 6 built in "Export to PDF" command. However, five of these Macs over the course of the last week or two have suddenly stopped exporting pdfs. Quark acts as though it is creating the pdf and then gives the following error message.

Unable to create the &quot;<filename.pdf>&quot; pdf file.

Nothing I've tried, including reinstalling Quark has solved the problem. I've gone through all of the usual troubleshooting techniques (trashing preferences, etc) to no avail. Once this problem develops it forever after refuses to export pdfs. I've installed Acrobat 6 on a couple of these machines. I'm able to create pdfs through Distiller, however Acrobat 6 is painfully slow. The only other workaround is saving back to Quark 5 and creating pdfs from there.

Is anyone else experiencing this problem? Solutions? Possibly a corrupt file somewhere?

Thanks,
jerry

 

[catman2u]

This is no doubt so long ago you've solved the problem, but I'm curious how you did it in case I get it again. I didn't have time to jerk around, I tried all the standard stuff, so I finally reformated our hard drive, reinstalled 10.3.

But oops ("you have no activations lieft" of the 5 allowed because we switched macs a couple of times. I use it because of lemming clients that send in files using quark.

--catman

 

[ericelbow]

I've run into this problem 3 times. The first two times I fixed it by adjusting the permissions of the Jaws folder. Now I'm on Panther it that doesn't seem to help.

 

[MyFavoriteLetterIsB]

Did you try replacing the contents of the JAWS folder with a backed up copy?

 

[dougal77]

I've also had problems exporting to PDF when I've used some (non-standard) fonts in the document. The only way I could find to resolve it was to use different fonts. I know this is a pain but I hope it helps at least someone!

 

[gennaria]

A couple of possible solutions.

First, we have seen this problem when certain printer's in the print center are chosen. Try choosing a different printer. Or if none of them work or you have no other printer options, try creating a printer using the following steps.

1. Go to Print Center (OS X Drive > Applications > Utilities).
2. Click Add.
3. Select "IP Printing" from the First dropdown.
4. Put in "127.0.0.1" as the Printer's address.
5. Click "Add".
6. Select 127.0.0.1 in the Printer List and click on Make Default.
7. Close Print Center.

The second work-around is to create a new document with the same dimensions as the current document, put both documents in Thumbnail view and then drag (all together) the thumbnails from one document to the other. This has helped us with documents that someone else created that for some reason won't create a pdf on a different machine. No idea why this works.

jerry

 

[designchic]

I too have had trouble with the export to pdf function, and so from now on i create them through Distiller... at least i'll know it will almost always work.

 

[emkemner]

Ive been having this problem for about 2 monhts now. Actualy ever since i updated to quark 6.1. I now eport to a post script file and convert it to pdf. But i can't convert it using adobe distiller or some of my EPS logos come out black and white, so i have to use preveiw to convert the ps files. I have come to the conclusion that InDesign is a much better program and the customer service is also much better. But some of the printers i send ads to want quark files not InDesign so for now i'm still stuck with quark

 

[ericelbow]

From reading these messages, it sounds like the only solid lead that we have for a universal remedy is to tinker with the jaws folder. (removing fonts did nothing for my ongoing problem)

I've had some success with this in the past and have talked to a few others who have as well. In the past i repaired my pdf export by adjusting the permissions of the jaws folder. This no longer works for me. I also tried re-installing the pdf filter to no avail.

I still get the old "Unable to create the [filename.pdf] file" message when I try to export layout to pdf.

Someone had mentioned replacing the jaws folder. Can someone zip up a working folder and post it somewhere so that some of us can try with a fresh one?

I'm getting desperate

 

[gennaria]

If you delete the JAWS folder it will automatically regenerate. No need to have a "working" copy.

 

[ericelbow]

Hmmm.... I've tried deleting the JAWS folder and no dice. It does regenerate but I have the same issues. So it is either something else or it does not regenerate properly.

Any other suggestions? Has a total re-install helped anyone with this issue? I'm hesitant to do that will how inconsistent and cranky the activation stuff can be.

 

[gennaria]

Is the problem consistent on every document? If so have you tried creating a dummy printer for Quark? (See my earlier post if you haven't.)

 

[ericelbow]

Gennaria,
I was getting the same problem when trying to print with the dummy printer.

Good news. On a hunch, I went back and tinkered with the settings of dummy printer. I had tried several options for the dummy printer but none had worked. Then I went back and made it as generic as possible. It seems to work now that I have that generic dummy printer set as printer.

Thanks so much!!!

I would be curious to know if this solution works consistently for others. If it has, post your success so that we know that this is one of our main work-a-arounds.


Anyone have thoughts on what is causing this to happen in the first place or any ideas on preventative maintenance?

 

[pg73]

I have been having this same problem at work on our 3 G5s using Quark 6.1 but on my Powerbook at home using Quark 6.1 I have no problem exporting layout as PDF. The main difference I can see is that at home I have no printer set up at all and have not even tried printing, whereas at work we have Quark's printer description set to either an Apple Laserwriter or Xerox Phaser.

I have just tried changing my settings at home to one of the printer settings I use at work but the PDF export still works. Maybe because I've not actually printed to a printer its not a valid test.

The only other main difference at work is that all the machines have Norton Anti virus running on them whereas I don't at home - just to rule this out, is anyone having this PDF problem while NOT running Norton Anti virus?

This is a really major problem which Quark should of sorted out by now, though I'm not surprised they haven't with their track record. Lets hope we can figure out a viable work around.

 

[Used2BQuarkLuvr]

First I just want to say THANK YOU for helping me to resolve my problem with exporting PDFs... It was most definitely the printer problem as I just installed a new Xerox Phaser when these problems started. I switched my default back to my trusty old Lexmark B&W and walla, it worked!! But, there's always a 'but' isn't there? Now when I export a job, one of my fonts appears bitmapped in the PDF file. It looks fine on screen. If I create a .ps file, does the same thing. However, if I save it as an .eps and then distill it, it works perfectly. What gives with that?? Both Suitcase X1 and FontDoctor say there are no problems with the fonts. (BTW, I was able to export this file previously without any problems with this font). Any suggestions? Glad to have found this forum as I have been biting my tongue so much lately with Quark it's about ready to fall off!!

Thanks for any help!!

 

[gennaria]

I've seen the bitmap font issue and every time it's been solved by deleting the font from Suitcase and reinstalling a known good copy. (Usually taken from a computer where it's working.)

Quark is particularly wonky about fonts. Fonts that otherwise appear to be ok don't work correctly in Quark. Also, there is sometimes an issue with a conflict between a third-party font and the built in OS X fonts. Helvetica and Zaph Dingbats are to particularly troublesome examples. I've had to remove Helvetica and Zaph Dingbats from the OS X fonts folder (Library->Fonts or System->Library->Fonts) and only use the third party postscript fonts I've always used. (And it's worth noting that if you remove Helvetica from the OS X Fonts folder and do not activate a replacement Helvetica in Suitcase you may have problems with some OS X apps and utilities like Software Update and Mail.)

 

[dmr2]

For anyone still having this problem....Quark has a patch for this now. Just got to Quark.com, click on downloads, then search for PDF Filter Patch.