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Date: May 20, 2004
I got a job.
I bought a new PC computer. (Whether I wanted a PC or not.)
I assumed I needed FrameMaker right away (I didn't) so I paid thru the nose ($800) to Fry's for FrameMaker 7. (UGH)
I could have waited and shopped eBay and got it 1/2 price.
At least.
Did it for the Mac. (Bought 1/2 price.)
I also bought Acrobat 6 and office whatever (2002) for the XP. ANd Ilusatrator - which did come off the web. (Good buy!)
Things went fine until I tried to actually USE the software. FrameMaker that is. Illustrator and Acrobat appear to be fine. Microsoft never is. Fine that is.
I have a thing about $800 software not working right.
Gets me rather annoyed.
FrameMaker 7.0 it seems, does not play well with Acrobat 6.0. Nor Illusatrator for that matter. And of course - there is Visio in the mix.
But then, Microsoft doesn't play well with either Acrobat 5.x or 6.0.
I started up FrameMaker, and converted about 310 pages from Word to Frame. Inserted all the art from Visio is a copy paste routine that allows right-click to access Visio and edit. Illustrator now uses native (.ai) format for import to FrameMaker (who thought that up?) and brings in the whole page instead of the image (brain-damage!!!) but right-clicks for edit as well.
Along the way, I learned that Word, in addition to loosing the round buttons when saving to PDF, also drops them on converting to FrameMaker. It is a MicroSoft problem, of which they have many.
And don't care. I style-tagged everything in sight.
I found that I could PRINT when the Adobe PDF printer was selected in FrameMaker and get a PDF file. I was stumbling aorund going "I KNOW it does this -----". I last used FrameMaker 5+. The differences are subtle and sometimes incomprehensible. Good thing FramaMaker is dying off.
I hadn't figured out which settings button led to bookmarks but I had figured out that SAVE AS PDF was NOT working.
I hunted the Adobe site for support.
I found that I needed a postscript printer driver. (Hold that thought.)
Hmmmm.
That is usually given away on the CDs - so I searched the Illustrator (bought on eBay), FrameMaker and Acrobat CDs.
The Mac postscript driver install will NOT work on a PC. (I tried it just for fun.)
First, they have decided, for whatever blind reasoning, to make exploring the CD a difficult maneuver! Like most people are too dumb to read a CD in list format. (Well,.... most are.)
But I managed to discover that the printer driver install thingy was not there. (This is surprizing because it always was on every CD (or floppy) you got from Adobe in the past. Whether you wanted it or not!)
I left this problem lie while I dealt with the Word to PDF fiasco.
The subject of another paper.
Well, today I decided to solve the %#$@& problem. I WANT TO SAVE AS PDF!
I went to the web.
I checked again for Frame and PDF problems. I tried a number of combinations. The search engines leave a lot to be desired. Sometimes, not using the Adobe suppoprt search but using Google on the whole web gets better answers.
I saw directions from Adobe that required a postscript printer driver and then "FrameMaker will know what to do."
Sure it will.
I found the postscript driver download page.
Gee --- there were about 20 versions of that puppy!
Hmmmmmm.
I installed an appropriate one.
This required that I actually know the name of my network and the printer.
I am a contractor - but I found it.
All by myself.
(I hate network stuff. It's my son's domain. He is welcome to it.)
I installed.
Nada.
I still could not save.
So along comes the other tech writer.
He has XP, FrameMaker 7, and CAN save to PDF.
I looked at his system.
He has different printer control windows.
He has a whole lot of different stuff.
Same software???
FrameMaker 7 and Acrobat 5.something.
Hmmmm.
We went back to my system.
We checked - yep - postscript printer is sitting there.
No joy.
I checked my CDs again.
Now I am frustrated.
We can get bookmarks in the PRINT method - different setting window.
Found that.
But I want the other way to work! (Because I am stubborn!)
So I called Adobe.
No - this is a wrong number - you need------- Nice. (Update the web guys.)
I called the new number.
The ditz (I use that accurately) had to have a credit card number before sending me to technical.
Charge me and watch the fireworks guys! For $800, you had better supply information for free!
I "wouldn't be charged if it was their problem."
Duh! But some ditz still has my credit card.
Technical support came on, and started asking silly questions about case numbers etc - "We have a new system" --- like I give a darn!
I patiently explained. And then said ----- What I have is----
FrameMaker 7 - Acrobat 6 (yes, I tried the web) and I cannot SAVE AS PDF and I WANT TO!
I said I had done what the web said and downloaded the postscript driver.
He said, "That's for Acrobat 5."
I said, I have uninstalled and reinstalled Acrobat.
He said, after fussing around, uninstall FrameMaker.
And reinstall, making sure not to install distiller.
(Which is how I had installed it in the first place, knowing that I had Acrobat.)
So ---- I did that.
Which also required a reboot.
On a big Toshiba with a 1 GIG RAM and a big hard drive.
Not instantaneous.
And oh yes, do NOT have the ZIP drive plugged while booting as the machine gets confused. (He said it's a BIOS setting but I set the BIOS to boot from the harddrive----- and then the PC internal speakers went silent too. PCs are strange creatures.)
While uninstalling, he said there was an internal memo - and patch 578 fixed the problem because "FrameMaker 7 was done before Acrobat 6 (and is an old piece of crap) and therefore gets confused."
DUMB! (He affirmed that there would never be a FrameMaker for Panther--- the Mac OS --- we know - all support for the Mac version of FrameMaker has ended. And PageMaker went dead. I had better learn InDesign----- OR update QuarkXpress.)
If Acrobat was done after FrameMaker 7 then Acrobat should have made provision for handling FrameMaker 7.
FrameMaker instead has a patch.
Now --- the web trail I left shows that I had in fact already installed this patch.
Else I would get pinged by the software minders that I needed to install something.
But --- we download the first of two patches - before discovering that my version of FrameMaker 7 had the first patch already installed.
In other words, they changed mid-production.
They didn't say "FrameMaker 7.1".
They just did it.
Something comes to mind about a lack of revision control.
So I got the second patch downloaded - and they had changed the icon and I couldn't find it for a few minutes. (Why change the icon to blue sailing ships instead of a red box????)
It was hiding.
I installed it - and this time - it works.
Turns out - I had this installed - but somehow the ORDER of the install, combined with the re-install of Acrobat mucked it up.
Now I can SAVE TO PDF from FrameMaker 7.
Now I am happy.
This took an hour.
I protested that somehow I should be able to file a complaint.
Obtuse directions in the support database on-line.
Reference did not pop up.
Better yet, there is an order of install dependency apparently, which was not mentioned. Anywhere.
I got up - and walked over to my boss' cube, and there he was, with the doc person, fighting with WORD and its oversized PDF files.
WORD, you see, generates PDF files that are BIGGER than the original WORD file.
Which is ass-backwards.
The PDF file is supposed to be 1/4th to 1/3rd as big as the source file.
Just not for the newer Office products which appear to be brain-damaged.
FrameMaker DOES make little PDF files.
Which is why I was trying to generate them using FrameMaker 7 in the first place.
PS: Later, at home, in the evening, the Programming God came to visit, and took over my G5 (lecturing me on DSL and the need for it) and helped me get FrameMaker on the Classic Mode running and saving (printing) PDF files. Actually postscript files and then I need to drag the file to the Panther mode of the G5 (two operating systems) and push it on Distiller (part of Acrobat).
Well --- it works.
DSL - when SBC gets off strike - is coming to my house - Earthlink is leaving. I just need two Ethernet hubs, a bunch of wire, a wireless card for my son's G4 tower, and the patience of Job.
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