Re: Gigantic .PS files and errors in .PDFs (LONG)

[chawtrey@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Charles Hawtrey)]

Can somebody from Adobe help with points raised here?

Dan wrote:

> If I were you, I'd try printing the individual files within the book to
>
> PDF. This should isolate the file(s) which are producing the errors,
> and may also may help you to determine whether the bloat problem is
> occurring in all files or only in certain files. If you find that the
> same file(s) producing the errors are also the main source of the
> bloat, then in that file, try printing it to PDF in individual page
> ranges (different .ps filename for each page range) This should allow
> you to find the particular page range where the problem is occurring.
> Once the problem page range is identified, print each page within that
> page range to PDF to (hopefully)
> localize the problem to a particular page.

It's not just one book, it's all of them; so this approach, apart from
taking time I haven't got just now, seems unlikely to be productive. I
agree on the general approach, though.

> If none of the above steps find the problem, try printing the entire
> book to PDF with Acrobat Data turned off. If both the file bloat and
> the errors go away, then the cause must be in either the links or the
> bookmarks. So next, repeat the book printing with Acrobat Data turned
> on, but bookmarks turned off. If the problems go away, then something
> is wrong with bookmark generation. If the problem persists, then the
> links are the culprit.

But it all works perfectly with Windows NT, and has done for a couple of
years; that's what I can't figure out. I now find my colleague's Win2K
machine produces PS files nearly twice as large as mine. Even so, Acrobat
4.05 on NT distills them - but not on my W2K. Hers does it OK.

(Later) I've now done a print to PS with Acrobat Data turned off, on my
208 MB PS file generator machine. This gives me a far, far smaller file
size: 16.8 MB. The Acrobat has over 6000 links and 1300 bookmarks in a
1000-page document. Is that the price of sophistication? Go from NT to
W2K with loads of Acrobat features, and you decuple the PS file size and
get fatal errors in the PDF?

> If, after all these steps, you still are unable to localize the
> problem, perhaps you should consider upgrading to Frame 6.0, which has
> the new Optimize PDF feature,

I can't upgrade since our clients use FrameViewer on Windows, SGI IRIX,
Solaris and IBM AIX, and FV 6 does not exist for IRIX. We also have an
upcoming problem with FV 5.5.6 and AIX 5.1.

> and also upgrading to Acrobat 5.05, which has a number of bug fixes.

This upgrade should help with Acrobat, yes - but with printing to
Postscript? BTW, Acrobat Reader 5 is not compatible UNIX, nor is 4.05
with AIX 5.1 on IBM, Solaris 7 or 8, or IRIX 6.5. (In some cases they
happen to work OK; others, no.) Linux: 4.05, no Search available.

Mark Rives wrote:

> I jumped from NT4 to Win2k and discovered that Frame 5.5 is not
> supported.  I had to move to Frame 6.0.  Otherwise, there were a lot
> of font problems that made it unusable.  With Frame 6.0 and Win2k
> I get similar results to those obtained with Frame 5.5 and NT4.
> I'm not sure, Frame 5.5.6 may be OK under Win2k but Frame 5.5 is
> definitely not.  Check Adobe.com to make sure.

I'm on 5.5.6, and I can't go to 6.0 for reasons explained above.

> I've had great results with Win2k, at least as stable as NT4 now
> that I have decent RAM and all the service pack stuff installed.

1 GB RAM and SP2. Is there any better around?

> The Microsoft Office 2k shortcut bar is reported to cause problems so I
>
> do not use it.

OK, I've taken off the Office shortcut bar and the W2K "quick launch"
bar. We'll see. (Pity that - I use them a lot. No problem on W98...?)

> Otherwise, the RAM (which worked perfectly under NT4)
> was the only problem.

On 2/19/02, I wrote:
>(Cross-posted to omsys Framers and Frame2Acrobat)
>
>After working for several years on Win NT4 I've been upgraded to a new
>PC with Win 2K.
>
>Apart from the marked need to reboot the system much more often, I've
>found I create huge .PS files when printing to the Distiller port from
>Frame books.
>
>Example: 208 MB with Win2K, 23.8 MB with Win NT.
>
>The size of the PDF is largely unchanged, but see below.
>
>Also I find frequent cases where:
>
>- Distiller creates a PDF but then says "Errors in PDF - suggest
>recreating with Optimize turned off" (or similar)
>
>- I run further operations on the PDF, such as Ari's Link Checker, and
>get after a while:
>
>"Error: A file error has occurred.
>0x400a0001
>C:\Projects\LCheck\SOURCES\LCStuff.c, line 2771"
>
>If I try to do anything else, I just get "A file error has occurred."
>
>If I then try to save, I am told:
>"The document could not be saved. A file error has occurred."
>
>So I go back to my NT machine, and all goes perfectly. Final PDF size:
>5,766 KB.
>
>Has anyone any ideas?
>
>On both machines:
>FrameMaker 5.5.6, Acrobat 4.05.
>Ari's Link Checker v.1.3.3
>SP TimeSavers v.3.2 (with Unbloat turned on)
>
>NT machine: 256 MB RAM
>Win 2K machine: 1 GB RAM.
>
>Charles Hawtrey,
>Schlumberger, UK

====================
| Nullius in Verba |
====================
Dan Emory, Dan Emory & Associates



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