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Using PageMaker 6 to Create PDFs
> When I try to create the file, the first two
> lines in the Create Adobe PDF window are grayed out. So I
CANNOT
> select the button _Distill Now_ or the box _View PDF Using: _.
The
> HELP button says Distiller must be installed; it is (from
the
> PageMaker CD.) Am I missing something else that should be
installed?
Here's what I did: I installed PageMaker 6.0 on a new computer and tried "Create PDF." Why put it in the menu is the installer doesn't install Distiller, right?? Well, it's in the menu whether Distiller is installed or not, so I got the same error Gretl got. Then I installed Distiller. (This was troublesome since it uses a DIFFERENT SERIAL NUMBER THAN PAGEMAKER!) Still a greyed-out "Distill Now." So I opened both PageMaker *and* Distiller (buy the RAM to do this now -- it's as cheap as it's ever been!) and tried again and it worked. Finally I quit everything and started PageMaker again and this time "Distill Now" was available -- PM had "learned" Distiller was there.
(By the way, using Acrobat's compression and bitmap downsampling ability, my test PDF from earlier this afternoon (a 5x7 page with text overlaid on a Photo CD picture) shrank from 3.4 MEGABYTES to 66k -- even thoughI had included the two fonts I used! I told distiller to downsample the color bitmap from 300 dpi to 100 and to use JPEG compression.)
I have attached the relevant FaxYI note from Adobe. Note that it contains three minor errors:
Issue: The Distill now option is dimmed in Adobe PageMaker 6.0's Create Adobe PDF dialog box.
Solutions
Do one or more of the following:
A. Install Adobe Acrobat Distiller 2.0 or later, then ensure it launches by double-clicking its application icon at the Finder.
B. Quit PageMaker, then delete the "Create Adobe PDF.prf" file in the Plugins folder in the RSRC folder in the Adobe PageMaker 6.0 folder.
C. Rebuild the desktop file by holding down the Command and Option keys while restarting the Macintosh. Keep the keys held down until you receive the message "Are you sure you want to rebuild the desktop file on the disk '[diskname]'? Comments in info windows will be lost." then click OK.
D. Before launching the Create Adobe PDF plug-in, move the Acrobat Distiller application file to the desktop. After the Create Adobe PDF plug-in has launched, move the Acrobat Distiller application file back to its original position, if desired.
Additional Information
When the Distill now option is selected in the Create Adobe PDF dialog box, Adobe Acrobat Distiller 2.0 and later launches automatically and distills the PageMaker 6.0 PostScript file into a Portable Document File (PDF). When the Create Adobe PDF plug-in module cannot locate Distiller or when insufficient memory is available to launch Distiller, the Distill now option is dimmed.
The Create Adobe PDF plug-in refers to the desktop file to determine whether Distiller is installed. When the desktop file is damaged or is not up-to-date, the plug-in may receive incorrect information. Rebuilding the desktop file creates a new desktop file. Moving the Acrobat Distiller application file to the Desktop enables the Finder to locate the Acrobat Distiller application file.
The amount of memory (RAM) required to launch Distiller while running PageMaker varies depending on system configuration. PageMaker 6.0 requires a minimum of 10 MB (68000-series Macintosh) or 12 MB (Power Macintosh) of RAM. Acrobat Distiller requires a minimum of 8 MB of RAM.
When the Distill now option is dimmed, you can create a PostScript file to be distilled separately.