RE: Acrobat 4 OnLine Help Deficiencies

["Ridder, Fred" <Fred.Ridder@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Dan Emory [mailto:danemory@primenet.com]
> Sent: Saturday, June 17, 2000 9:16 PM
> To: Free Framers; FrameSGML List; TECHWR-L
> Subject: Acrobat 4 OnLine Help Deficiencies
> 
> 
> Below is the procedure on pages 111-112 of the Acrobat 4 Online Guide 
> regarding the
> setup of Distiller PPD's on Windows Platforms. I have annotated the 
> information where
> it is erroneous, misleading, or incomplete. This example 
> typifies the total 
> inadequacy of
> Adobe's documentation of the Acrobat product.
> 
> Setting up a Distiller printer (Windows)
> The AdobePS printer driver and an Acrobat Distiller PPD are 
> included in the
> default Acrobat installation. You can set up additional 
> Distiller printer 
> drivers-
> for example, if you need to have both an RGB printer and a 
> CMYK printer, or if
> you want to have different printers for different applications.
> =============================================
> <Annotation: This is very misleading.  You can set up 
> multiple Distiller PPDs
> (in addition to the one that's initially installed) in the 
> XTRAS subfolder of
> the Distiller folder but the online guide does not describe 
> how you do it.
> There are four more (uninstalled) Distiller PPDs in the
> Utilities\Drivers\PPD Files\Windows folder of the CD, but these are 
> strictly for
> Asian languages. If they are needed, they must be copied from the CD
> to the XTRAS folder under Distiller. If there is anything 
> about installing
> these PPDs when they are needed, I haven't found it in the 
> online Guide.>


Well, I guess you must be correct that the documentation is 
misleading on this point because you are totally misled.  What 
the documentation is talking about is setting up separate 
printer driver instances that have different preferences settings
so that you don't have to go into the control panel every time
you need to do something a little different.  But all of these
instances can be built with the *same* Distiller PPD, not one 
of the special Asian-language PPDs.  

> ===================================================
> For each Distiller printer, you need to select a PPD and a 
> destination 
> folder for the PDF output.
> The AdobePS printer driver uses a folder called PDF Output in 
> your Acrobat
> folder as the destination for PDF files. You can change this 
> to another folder,
> which can be helpful if you prefer to keep PDF files in 
> another part of 
> your hard
> drive or if the drive with the PDF Output folder is full.
> ========================================================
> <Annotation: The above statement pertains to the procedure 
> below, which
> has nothing to do with creating additional Distiller PPDs. 
> The procedure
> below tells you how to set up a printer that uses a Distiller 
> PPD after that
> PPD exists in the XTRAS subfolder.>
> ===================================================

I don't agree.  The quoted statement refers to another potential 
reason for creating multiple printer instances. You might, for
example, set up different printer instances that put the PDF directly
in a special directory for review drafts or a publicly accessible
directory that contains final, published versions.  

Also, I think it's a little misleading to refer to "a printer that uses 
a Distiller PPD".  As I understand the process, the only time a PPD 
file is used directly is when you build a printer driver with the 
AdobePS setup utility.  The contents of the PPD file are embedded
in the printer driver instance when you build it, and from that point
on the PPD file itself is not directly used.  Remember back a year 
or so to the problems some printer drivers had with PostScript 
version strings between 2012 and 2015 (or some such numbers)?
The fix was to edit that string in the PPD file, but in order to make 
the change take effect, you had to delete the old printer driver
and build a new one with the edited PPD because the PPD itself
is not used by the driver once it is built. 

My opinions only; I don't speak for Dialogic or Intel...
Fred Ridder (Fred.Ridder@Dialogic.com)
Senior Technical Writer
Dialogic, an Intel Company
Parsippany, NJ


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