Quark 6 to PDF

D

damian21

Registered
Has anyone experienced a situation as described below:
When trying to create a PDF in Quark 6.5 using the File>Export>Layout as PDF, the PDF fails to be produced. Using the same method but saving the output file as a .PS, the postscript file will not generate a PDF file thru Acrobat Distiller (v6).
The OS is Tiger 10.4.4 on a G5 Tower, QXP is v 6.5 and Acrobat is v6.0 -- one caveat, a colleague has the same set-up on an G4 MDD and can create the PDF files using this method thru QuarkXPress.
Does anybody have a clue as to how to alleviate this situation? I have trashed QXP prefs and trashed the Jaws folder. Any information would be appreciated.
 
More information is needed:

What fonts are you using? What kinds of images? Are there any errors in Usage for your fonts and images?

I have a feeling you might have a corrupted pdf preference for your quark export, but that doesn't explain why it won't create a .ps file.

Have you tried saving an eps and seeing if you can RIP that?
 
thanks for the reply ...actually a .ps file is generated, but cannot be distilled into a PDF with Distiller v6. No font issues -- layout is using Helvetica and Times font families, image file is not overly large or corrupt.
Copying the file and image asset to another workstation produced both a PDF directly from Quark's Export, and a .ps file that did work with Distiller. All the settings are the same on both machines (though one is a G5 and the other a G4 MDD -- worked on the MDD).
You may be correct about the corrupt pdf preference for the quark export.
I'll try purging that file and replace it with a new one
Thanks for your observations and suggestions
 
I've never quite trusted QXPs "Export layout to PDF", so rather than using the "Export" function, I always print to a .PS file instead and Distill it.

You'll need to ensure that the Adobe PDF driver is set up and available to QXP in the Printer Description setup in the Print dialog. Then you go through the normal print process, selecting page sizes, crops, resolution, etc, just as you would if you were printing to a physical printer.

The trick is, just before clicking "Print", to select the "Printer" button (next to the "Page Setup" button at the bottom left of the dialog box. Select "Adobe PDF" as the printer. At the bottom of that dialog, you will see another button called "PDF". From that dropdown, select "Save PDF as Post Script…". (Why Quark had to add this extra step I'll never know!)

Give the .PS file a suiutable name in the dialog, click all of the "Print"/"Save As File" buttons on you way out and voilà! You should have an eminently distillable PostScript file!

If your Distiller is set up to monitor a "Watched" folder, then ensure that you print you PS file to it and if Distiller is running, you should automatically find a finished PDF waiting for you wehn you get there.

Hope that helps!

(What, Natobasso…? No dig at the 'inadequacies' of QXP vs InD? I'm amazed!)
 
CaptainQuark ( and Natobasso ):

thanks for the response. I just ran through ALL settings on both machines I mentioned (MDD G4 and G5) ... and Quark Tech support sent me an email suggesting that I add an IP printer set at 127.0.0.1 and make it the default.

(lightbulb goes on over my head - like in a cartoon)

I checked printer settings on the two machines -- MDD had a true postscript printer chosen as the default printer, the G5 was defaulting to an HP B/W non-postscript printer --- switched it to the color printer and the results are PDF files and/or .ps files that distill correctly. So apparently the "Jaws" method of Quark>Export to PDF is reliant upon a true postscript output device being the default device. I don't know if this is the case for everyone out there that has had problems with the dreaded "Could not create the PDF file" dialogue box from Xpress, but it might be worth a shot -- it worked in my situation.

Thanks for the replies and the excellent information.
 
You wouldn't have these issues with InDesign. That one's for you, CQ. ;)

Did you try Save As Eps and ripping that file? I didn't see that you tried that.
 
I can RIP an EPS file -- but since changing printers, and even reverting back to the B/W printer, I cannot get it to fail again using any method: EPS, .ps or PDF.
I will try the EPS on another machine that fails to create PDF.
thanks again for replies and info
 
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