topic Re: PDF weirdness in Documentation

PDF weirdness

Anonymous — Fri, 19 May 2023 20:24:41 GMT

Trying to create a PDF file from PM Publisher. I am following the same steps I always have; drag the layout to the Publisher window, tell it where to save the file (in "View Set publishing Properties"), set page options and document options the same way I always do, then hit Publish. What happen next is intriguing. The PDF comes up as "failed" with error message as attached, and my printer spits out a drawing which it has compressed from A3 lanscape format to A4 portrait, which is mildly amusing in itself.
I tried the same file on another machine and all was well, PDF created normally. No drama.
Back on my machine I tried a different LBK, one from which I had created PDF's many times, and got the same "failed" message, and A4 size compressed drawings.
Has anyone else experienced anything like this?

Re: PDF weirdness

Anonymous — Fri, 19 May 2006 02:45:30 GMT

This looks like the kind of thing that comes with a permissions/access error. Are you sure you are saving it to a directory that you can write to?

Re: PDF weirdness

Anonymous — Fri, 19 May 2006 03:21:48 GMT

Matthew

Have had issues before with permissions, but can't think why this would have happened now. I can still save the LBK and PLN files o.k. to the same locations. I was able to make PDF's yesterday. I haven't changed anything at this end, but our system consultants do have a history of making little alterations for us from time to time. I shall give them a call.

Thanks

Re: PDF weirdness

Barry Kelly — Fri, 19 May 2006 03:38:37 GMT

Is it anything to do with the default settings of your PDF converter?
i.e it is set to an A4 page or is set to scale at 50% or something?

Can't say I have ever published to PDF, I always just print my layout book to PDF.

Barry.

Re: PDF weirdness

Anonymous — Fri, 19 May 2006 03:57:59 GMT

Don't really know what it is to do with. As i said, I just set the thing up the same way I always do, but this time got the error message, even when trying to redo a previously set-up (and working) PDF set.

Re: PDF weirdness

Anonymous — Fri, 19 May 2006 07:00:07 GMT

s2art wrote:
Matthew

Have had issues before with permissions, but can't think why this would have happened now. I can still save the LBK and PLN files o.k. to the same locations. I was able to make PDF's yesterday. I haven't changed anything at this end, but our system consultants do have a history of making little alterations for us from time to time. I shall give them a call.

Thanks

One of my clients just had a strange problem with one particular file taking a reeeeeeaaalllly loooooooong time to open (like half an hour). It opened fine on a local drive and on other server drives but not on the project directory. At first the IT guy said it couldn't be a network or server problem but then was finally convinced to reboot the server and all was well again.

Re: PDF weirdness

Djordje — Fri, 19 May 2006 08:54:03 GMT

Barry wrote:
Can't say I have ever published to PDF, I always just print my layout book to PDF.

Learn how to do it ... no way to print the whole book in 10.

Re: PDF weirdness

fhedberg — Sun, 21 May 2006 22:22:28 GMT

I've had another problem with the creation of pdf docs from plotmaker.

When I'm a printing a layout as pdf all is fine but when I go and publish a layout to pdf some of our clients have a problem with opening the document......has anyone had similar problems???

...and yes, the client were using acrobat 7.0

Re: PDF weirdness

owen — Sun, 21 May 2006 23:57:08 GMT

has anyone noticed that Print PDF results in xxx.pdf while Publish PDF gives xxx.PDF

OS X recognises case in the extension and so does not overwrite one with the other .... this has caused some funny business in our filing a number of times when people have printed rather than published.

Another bit of strange behaviour that can occur due to this is when two files with the same name but different case extension live in the same folder. On some machines they cannot be selected - select one, the selection jumps between the two a couple of times and then dissappears

Surely the method of PDF creation within the application is the same in either method, so why the change in case?

Re: PDF weirdness

Anonymous — Mon, 22 May 2006 01:11:47 GMT

Stuart,
This sounds like it may be similar to a problem we discovered a while ago. Our symptoms were that we were publishing to PDF but somehow the PDF files weren't generated and instead the drawings were printed on a physical printer.

Long story short...When you open a session of PM or AC the temporary archicad/plotmaker printer gets created. When you shut down AC/PM the temporary printer is deleted. So, what happens is that if you open 2 sessions of PM and then shutdown one of them, the temp printer is deleted and the remaining session is left without one. Somehow, it will instead print to the last used printer.

To see if this is your problem check and see if the temp printer is there. If not you can startup another session and it will get created again and you should be able to publish again.

I hope this helps. Good luck.

Re: PDF weirdness

Aussie John — Mon, 22 May 2006 01:16:28 GMT

I have noticed this happening after a save operation has been terminated. Usually a restart fixes things.

Re: PDF weirdness

Anonymous — Mon, 22 May 2006 02:24:18 GMT

Eric

You seem to have a logical ( ) explanation for this strange occurrence, which could well have been exactly what happened. Friday was so long ago, but I do recall having 2 sessions of PM open at one stage. All is well again today, after shutting down for the weekend, but at least now I know why it happens, so it can be avoided in the future.

Thanks very much.

Re: PDF weirdness

Anonymous — Mon, 22 May 2006 02:33:17 GMT

I had to go look it up, but there is a workaround that disables the temp printer and therefore prevents this problem from occurring:

http://www.archicadwiki.com/TechNotes/Save_as_PDF_–_Disabling_the_temporary_ArchiCAD_publisher?highlight=%28temporary%29