Unable to Convert Word Doc to Adobe 5 1

[JohnBates]

Hi,

I have Word 2000 and Adobe Acrobat 5.0 running on a Win 2000 pc.


I can't convert any Word docs to PDF. I open the Word doc then click 'Convert to PDF'. After a few seconds it stalls or hangs and gives an error saying "Printers Folder - There was an error printing the document to ... path name. Do you want to retry?"

I've tried several Word 2000 docs and always get the same result.

Questions: Is Acrobat 5 compatible with Word 2000?
Which of the 'Conversion Settings' should I change to eliminate this problem?


Thanks for any help. John

 

[Eggles]

Rather than clicking on the 'Convert to PDF' button, try selecting Distiller as your printer when you go to File>Print. If Distiller is not listed as a printer, then your system has not been set up properly and you will need to add Distiller as a printer.

Normally when Acrobat is installed on a computer with Word 2000, the macro for executing 'Convert to PDF' is installed. Perhaps try installing Acrobat again, and taking care to select all relevant features

 

[JohnBates]

Thanks Eggles,

When I installed it, I installed Distiller Files, PDFWriter files and all possible components.

I tried File-->Print to Acrobat Distiller as you suggested.

Still get the same results...
The Adobe PDFMaker 5 for Word shows a progression bar that goes halfway. When I click Show Details it shows that it completed tasks such as 'Creating Footnote links', 'Converting Comments to Notes', 'Converting Document Information' The next step is 'Printing...' and that is where it stalls and I get the Printers Folder error box 'There was an error found when printing the document "Microsoft Word - Resume.... .doc" to "C:.... .pdf" Do you want to Retry or Cancel?'

I'm curious about he Adobe PDF Settings - it lists 4 choices for Conversion Settings: eBook, Press, Print and Screen. I've tried eBook and Print - dont know if this setting is causing the error or not.

Can you think of any more possible solutions?
Thanks, John

 

[Eggles]

John

Those settings - Screen, eBook, Print and Press are just four pre-set/default compression combinations. Which do as they suggest - create PDFs for output at four different levels of compression. The highest compression and thus smallest file size (and corresponding lowest quality) is 'Screen' - designed purely for viewing on screen and not really suitable for printing. It compresses graphics down to a resolution of 72dpi. eBook compresses graphics to 150dpi, which is suitable for printing on an average office printer without obvious pixelation of the graphics. The 'Print' setting compresses (if necessary) graphics to 300 dpi and is suitable for creating PDFs to be printed on high quality digital printers and the 'Press' setting doesn't compress much at all and is the format most suitable if you are getting the PDFs printed commercially on an offset press. Of course, you can change any of the options on these but until you understand the various settings, it is best to use whatever the appropriate default setting is for your PDF.

None of this should affect your ability to make a PDF from Word. I cannot think of any more things to suggest, except reinstalling Acrobat.

 

[Eggles]

I have had an idea about your problem. Is the Word file on a network drive or in a folder buried quite deep in several subfolders?

Try resaving your Word document directly to My Documents (or another folder directly on the root drive of your local computer) and try printing to Distiller again.

Also, go to Start>Settings>Printers, highlight Distiller and right click to choose Properties (or go to File>Properties). Under the 'Details' tab of Distiller Properties, what is the file path to the port where the PDFs will get saved? Mine is C:\WINDOWS\All Users\Desktop\*.pdf (PDF Port)

 

[JohnBates]

OK Eggles,

We got it !
I took your advice and reinstalled Acrobat 5 tonight.

I originally did a Custom type of setup - choosing everything I thought I needed. Obviously something went wrong.

Tonight I uninstalled - then did a Typical type of setup. Then I converted a couple of Word 2000 docs --> PDF - this is the first time I've been able to do this... and the pdf file looks great! It's my resume that I plan to upload to my simple little web page...

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/jbates6777/index.html

Thanks alot for your time. I learned a little more about Adobe Acrobat today.

John

 

[Eggles]

Yay!!

 

[Eggles]

My God - you WERE lucky to have come out of that accident with relatively minor injuries.

I have also had a look at your resume - and would like to make a couple of sugestions regarding layout (forgive me - I am a desktop publisher). Hope you don't mind.

Since this is a Word document, I think you ought to take advantage of some of its features, as follows:

(1) it doesn't need to be spread over 4 pages - most resumes should be 2 or no more than 3 pages long, otherwise people tend to get bored with them. Decrease the size of your margins and you should easily be able to get it back to 3 pages.

(2) the info in the box on page 1 - make that into a header, so that it is repeated on every page. I would swap the position of ypur email address and state, so that yopur full address appears ter on the LHS and the email/phone details are together on the right - and right justify the two lines. Perhaps not in a box, but with a line underneath.

(3) make the font size of the subheadings bigger e.g. 14 pt for the Summary, Qualifications etc.

(4) under the Qualifications section, try ptting the info into a 2-column x 5 row table, so that Programming, Databases etc are on the left and the associated info is neatly together on the right (of course, make the LH column much narrower). Same with the employer/position/term info - separate the text into two table columns, one row per each subheading.

Since I can contact you via your website, I will do this for you and send it when I have done it.

 

[JohnBates]

very cool Eggles !

Thanks for your suggestions for my resume. Looking forward to seeing your revised version.

I noticed that you usually log in very early. Just curious about what region of the world you're in.

best regards, John

 

[Eggles]

I live in Melbourne, in the south-eastern part of Australia. This means I am about 12 hours ahead of your time. I am also a bit of a nightowl and tend to be online late in the evening (my time).

I have sent you an email with your reworked resume incorporating the suggestions I made, in both Word and PDF format. Please feel free to do what you want with it.