Distiller

A: Tricky, it depends I believe on whether the customer will request these statements, or you will simply publish them anyway. The first is a violation, the second is (I think) not. It certainly appears that you can read it that way. This would certainly restrict the usefulness of the format.

I *thought* the idea of the licence was to prevent you making a 'distillation service' available, whereby people could send you files and have them converted and sent back. Creating your own documents in PDF form would certainly seem reasonable, and if you used the standard Distiller, and paid someone to sit and convert the files, this would certainly be permitted under that licence.

I think you may have to seek a legal opinion, or better, a clarification from Adobe. If you get one, I'd be interested in hearing it.

Ken Sharp (ken@spamcop.net) [A65]

A: Sure, use a colour driver.

Aandi Inston (quite@dial.pipex.com) [A66]

A: Yes. Do not use the HP driver, but the one Acrobat installed in your system: Acrobat Distiller 3.01. Using a black and white driver makes your images black and white.

Matti Vuori (mvuori@koti.soon.fi) [A67]

A: I had encountered the same problem and thought it was only on a German Windows2000/NT4 platform, since it didn't occurred on an English version that was at my disposal. May be the solution works for you as well. If you have a user defined format in Word and converting it to pdf via Acrobat Destiller does not output your format, try the following (only Win2000 or NT4): In the printer dialog (- start - settings - printers) in the uppermost menu-list you'll find the "file" menu. In the file menu you'll find the entry "server properties". In the "server properties" you can add a new format (like A4 or US-Letter). Name it "myformat" (or what ever you like). Fill in the your paper size (in the lower part of the dialog). Press the "save format" button. Now every printer that is listed in the printer-dialog-window has the "myformat"-format. Switch to Word. Look in the - file - "set up paper" (or whatever it's called in the English Word) dialog. The "myformat"-format should be displayed instead of "custompapersize". The new format is only local on your workstation (independent from your computer being connected to your LAN). If you want to convert doc to pdf on another machine, you must first add your self-defined paper size to the printer server properties as described above. No convert your Word document to pdf via the destiller. It should work correctly now.

Andreas Wall (Andreas.Wall@shinkatech.com) [A68]

A: With a watched folder you can create automatically a pdf with the same name as the original postscript file.

Veli Holopainen (veli.holopainen@kaleva.fi) [A69]

A: The AdobePS driver (free download from Adobe, of course) works well. Set up your Distiller printer to default to that driver.

Dick Margulis (margulis@fiam.net) [A220]

A: No, it is not font licensing. Font licensing problems say that is the problem. The problem is exactly as stated: Helvetica is not found. Now, Distiller 4 does not include a copy of Helvetica. This does not stop Acrobat from processing the PostScript, because it knows all about Helvetica. But your job options also ask to embed it. If you want to do that, Distiller needs the actual font. No, it is not font licensing. Font licensing problems say that is the problem. The problem is exactly as stated: Helvetica is not found. Now, Distiller 4 does not include a copy of Helvetica. This does not stop Acrobat from processing the PostScript, because it knows all about Helvetica. But your job options also ask to embed it. If you want to do that, Distiller needs the actual font.

This is not an issue with Distiller 3, since it would not embed Helvetica at all.

The chances are that you don't need to embed Helvetica either. If you don't, then add it to the Never Embed list. If you do want to embed it, purchase a copy and add it to a folder which Distiller searches for PostScript fonts. This is not an issue with Distiller 3, since it would not embed Helvetica at all. The chances are that you don't need to embed Helvetica either. If you don't, then add it to the Never Embed list. If you do want to embed it, purchase a copy and add it to a folder which Distiller searches for PostScript fonts.

Aandi Inston (quite@dial.pipex.com) [A235]

A: Do not select compatibility with Acrobat 2.1, and the limit should vanish. (I think that's right; if not, you need Distiller 4.0 with 4.0 compatibility).

Aandi Inston (quite@dial.pipex.com) [A241]

A: I don't think you'll see it with Distiler 4 and Acrobat 3 compatibility either.

Ron Teplitz (ronald.teplitz@alcatel.com) [A242]

A: The regular Distiller is not available, but Distiller Server *is* available for Linux. Distiller Server is licensed for intranet use (but not general internet use) for up to 100 users; US$5000.

Aandi Inston (quite@dial.pipex.com) [A259]

A: Please note that there are a number of open source alternatives to Distiller, which are covered in another section of this FAQ.

Michael Still (mikal@stillhq.com) [A260]

A: PostScript programming to do special effects is always tricky. Whatever programming technique you use, some application can disable it accidentally. So...you have a range of different techniques.

In this case, however, I suspect a different cause. Perhaps PowerPoint is starting by putting a large white box over each page that covers the watermark. You can check this with the Object Touch-up tool.

Aandi Inston (quite@dial.pipex.com) [A275]

A: In case anyone ever has the same problem. Here is the solution we came up with. My boss, Joe Prevo, changed the prologue.ps to the following:

 
%!PS-Adobe-3.0
%%BeginProlog
%%Title: (Watermark)
%%Version: 2.00 0

% define pdfmark if this print engine hasn't done it
/pdfmark where {pop} {userdict /pdfmark /cleartomark load put} ifelse

<<
  /EndPage
  {
    exch pop % ignore the count
    2 lt     % do the watermark only when called by copypage/showpage
    {
      gsave  % save the graphics state
      initgraphics
      [ /CropBox [ 0 0 currentpagedevice /PageSize get aload pop ]
/PAGE pdfmark
      /Helvetica-Bold findfont 10 scalefont setfont
      18 18 moveto
      (RELEASED - Printed documents may be obsolete; validate prior to
use.)
      true charpath gsave 0 setgray eofill grestore 1 setgray 0
setlinewidth stroke
      grestore
      true   % yes, do output to the real device
    }
    {
      false
    }
    ifelse
  }
>> setpagedevice

%%EndProlog
 

Ryan Ackley (sackley@cfl.rr.com) [A276]