Quack! (Was: Driver & Distiller Settings Phor Phun & Prophet!)

[Dov Isaacs <isaacs@xxxxxxxxx>]

Some followup to last week's posting ...

[1]	My tome applied ONLY to Acrobat 5.0.x, not any earlier versions.

[2]	Yes, the settings apply to ALL applications with some exceptions
	that I will note below.

[3]	The "PDF Settings" tab is only active if the "Acrobat Distiller"
	printer instance was installed as part of the installation of Acrobat.

	[a]	If you try to artificially create such an instance and it 
		wasn't originally created by the Acrobat installer, you won't
		get the PDF Settings tab and you won't get the correct 
		plumbing for printing directly to the Distiller.

	[b]	Acrobat MUST, repeat MUST, be installed with a userid that
		has full "Administrator" privileges. If you attempt the
		installation otherwise, the driver and the "plumbing"
		will not install or not install correctly. If you are
		upgrading from earlier versions of Acrobat, TOTALLY
		uninstall that earlier version and reboot your system 
		before installing Acrobat 5.0 or 5.0.5. NOTE that although
		the system might not tell you to do such a reboot, it may
		actually be necessary in order for all the vestiges of
		the older version to be deleted completely. After installing
		Acrobat 5.0.x or the update to 5.0.5, you may also need to
		reboot.

	[c]	For Windows XP users only:

		If you attempt to install Acrobat 5.0.5, the driver, driver
		instance, and the plumbing should all install correctly.

		If you attempt to install Acrobat 5.0 (obviously followed by
		the update to 5.0.5), you could run into a problem in terms
		of driver installation. I recommend that prior to attempting
		to install Acrobat 5.0, you use the "Add Printer" wizard and
		create a dummy "to File" PostScript printer driver instance.
		You might use the "MS Publisher Imagesetter", for example.
		Virtually any printer will do. Don't bother with any further
		setup on it. Then install Acrobat 5 and then install the
		Acrobat 5.0.5 update. Finally, delete the dummy printer
		driver instance.

	[d]	For Windows 2000 users only:

		There is a situation that can occur in which installation
		of SP 2 (Service Pack 2) for Windows 2000 after installing
		Acrobat 5 could overwrite the correct version of the PostScript
		driver with an older version of that driver that has a newer
		date -- don't ask why!!!  (8^)>  This problem should be resolved
		by uninstalling Acrobat 5, rebooting, creating a dummy PostScript
		driver instance "to FILE" as a "Generic PostScript" printer using
		the Adobe Universal PostScript Driver Installer 1.0.5 or 1.0.6 
		(to be posted soon), and then reinstalling Acrobat 5.0.x.

[4}	The Acrobat Distiller printer instance setup by the Acrobat installer
	is not designed for "printing to file." It was designed for and has the
	plumbing setup to pass PostScript through to the Distiller directly. 
	If you do try to use this instance "to file" as opposed to directly to 
	the Distiller, the enabling driver plugin gives you a message:

		When you create a postscript file you have to send the 
		host fonts. Please go to the Acrobat Distiller printer
		properties "Adobe PDF Settings" page and turn OFF the option
		"Do not sent fonts to Distiller"

	Obviously, turn off the option and it will work.

	There are very few instances in which you should be creating a PostScript
	file and then manually distilling it or use the "watched folders" facility.
	The few that come to mind are:

	[a]	Producing a single PDF file from a FrameMaker 6 (and earlier)
		book since except when going to a single, named file, FrameMaker
		puts each chapter out as separate PostScript on the print queue.

	[b]	You use some third party PostScript preprocessor before distilling
		(such as for color conversion or imposition).

	[c]	You need to debug the PostScript.

	Otherwise, let the system do the heavy lifting for you!

	If you really MUST go to file with PostScript intended ultimately for the
	Distiller, I would most strongly recommend that you create a separate
	PostScript printer driver instance associated with the Acrobat Distiller
	PPD and explicitly designate its port as "FILE:". Give it some name such as
	"Acrobat Distiller FILE", for example.

[5]	There are two instances that come to mind in which you may need to turn
	OFF the "Do not sent fonts to Distiller" option. (Remember, you can always
	do this temporarily within an application via access to printer properties
	as opposed to permanently and globally via the printer control panel!!)
	These instances (which do NOT include anything that directly relates to
	use of FrameMaker, thank goodness) are:

	[a]	Printing font samples (actually creating a PDF file for these
		samples) by double-clicking on fonts that are not currently
		actually installed on your system.

	[b]	Using GDI applications (such as some members of Microsoft Office)
		with documents with embedded TrueType or OpenType fonts when those
		fonts are not already installed on your system. (These applications
		use a feature of temporarily installing the font embedded in a
		Word document, for example, while editing and printing the 
		document, for example. These fonts are displayed and put into the
		print stream for printing, but they would be unavailable to the
		Distiller at distillation time because they would not be physically
		located in the file system in any location that the Distiller would
		be aware of.)

[6]	Urban legend and pointy-haired bosses notwithstanding, there is NO reason
	to put any fonts in the "always embed" if you request that all fonts be 
	embedded. It is duplicative and redundant and a waste!   (8^)>

	However, if you put fonts in the "never embed" list, that list overrides
	"embed all fonts" for the fonts named in that list.

[7]	For those of you who just love Helvetica, Times, and Courier (who am I to
	question lousy taste, right?), if you haven't started doing so, you should
	now always embed those fonts. Beginning with Acrobat 4, Acrobat and Acrobat
	Reader shipped only with "Arial" and "Times New Roman" substitutes for those
	fonts. You should not assume that Adobe will continue to ship those fonts,
	either (hint, hint). Bottom line is that unless you are a real glutton for
	punishment, embed all fonts subsetted. The file size is not appreciably
	increased by doing so, unless you are producing ransom letters or type
	sample books, which in both cases you definitely would want the real fonts
	embedded.
	
[8]	Remember, that with FrameMaker 7 (due real, real, real, real soon!!!!),
	"Save as PDF" works and some of this will be a little obsolete. More then!


Next up ... Advice for those of you who "think different" with computers that
"think incompatible" ...

	- Dov


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