PDF export

[Rainald Taesler]

The PDF export suffers seriously.
Before I go deeper into this:
Will this feature still be in the Final?

I think remember that recently it was reported that the negotiations
between MS and Adobe failed and that MS would not include PDF creation
in Office 2007.

Will there be a chance to see something like the Acrobat "PDF Maker"
macros in the Office applications as we have them now?

Rainald

 

[Patrick Schmid]

The PDF export suffers seriously.

Before I go deeper into this:
Will this feature still be in the Final?

Yes and no. It will not be in the product straight out of the box, but
you'll be able to download it for free.

Will there be a chance to see something like the Acrobat "PDF Maker"
macros in the Office applications as we have them now?

Yuck, please not! Those Adobe add-ins are horribly written and a major
pain. Adobe should do everyone a favor and just get rid of them.

Patrick Schmid

 

[Rainald Taesler]

Yes and no. It will not be in the product straight out of the
box, but you'll be able to download it for free.

OK, sounds good.

Yuck, please not! Those Adobe add-ins are horribly written and a
major pain.

Really?
It's one of the most used features on my side.
Would not know how to work without (because I need more than just a
*printer*).
How else can one get ineratcive documents having links to the
fottnotes and from the TOC to the respective chapter? On how get
interactive URLs in the PDF?

Adobe should do everyone a favor and just get rid of
them.

PLeeeeeease not!!!
At least not until MS will have something which is not as poor as the
PDF creation feature in ON 07.

Rainald

 

[Grant Robertson]

Really?
It's one of the most used features on my side.
Would not know how to work without (because I need more than just a
*printer*).
How else can one get ineratcive documents having links to the
fottnotes and from the TOC to the respective chapter? On how get
interactive URLs in the PDF?

Well, you could get the full version of Acrobat and add them in by hand.
But then, who wants to go back through an acrobat file and redo all the
work they had previously done in the original document.

It wouldn't surprise me if the Adobe add-ins didn't work right because
Microsoft doesn't want them to work right. It is amazing how many
products stop working well just before Microsoft starts marketing a
competing product.

 

[Patrick Schmid]

Actually the Adobe add-ins are just poorly written. They have always
been considered to be a piece of crap.

Patrick Schmid

 

[Rainald Taesler]

Well, you could get the full version of Acrobat and add them in
by hand.

Beware of that!
That's a kind of work for someone in a prison camp who slew his mother
and his father ... <bg>

I use linking by hand under certain circumstances for some individual
links.

But then, who wants to go back through an acrobat file
and redo all the work they had previously done in the original
document.

Rightyright!
I'm not up to manually add the links for tons of URLs quoted in the
footnotes of a student's paper. And not even the TOC of a paper with
the respective pages ...

It wouldn't surprise me if the Adobe add-ins didn't work right
because Microsoft doesn't want them to work right.

I do not think so.
MS for sure has been doing some evil things and - even more
important - not done possible thing with respect to competitors'
prodcts (think alone of the converters).

Apart: I cannot see that the Acrobat PDF-Maker add-ins would not work.
They do their job perfectly well (at least for me; and have not herad
any reports on problems from my students).

It is amazing
how many products stop working well just before Microsoft starts
marketing a competing product.

A legend, IMHO.
Any examples?

Rainald
(who is anything but a person who loves MS and who hads not yet made
hisd peace with several MS products)

 

[Rainald Taesler]

Actually the Adobe add-ins are just poorly written. They have
always been considered to be a piece of crap.

Objection Your Honour!

What does "badly written mean"?

And who - yourself left alone for the moment - might consider this
most valuable amendment just a "piece of crap"?

Often prejudice has a long life but no factual basis.

Rainald

 

[Grant Robertson]

Rainald
(who is anything but a person who loves MS and who hads not yet made
hisd peace with several MS products)

And yet we persevere.

And yet we persevere...

 

[Patrick Schmid]

Ask any Outlook or Word MVP on those. E.g., the tools are still not
compatible with Outlook 2003 SP2. They don't uninstall the UI correctly
when removed.
And of course they are totally useless with 2007. In fact, they are so
utterly useless that they are the #1 reason for crashing Outlook 2007
whenever you write a new message or open an existing one (believe me,
you get pissed at the tools after writing 5 times a day that they are
the cause for Outlook crashing). In addition, in Word e.g. all that they
do is show their UI, but none of the buttons actually work.
I am not referring to the Adobe PDF printer driver. That one I use
myself a lot and have no issues with. It's just those add-ins they
wrote, that are a piece of crap.

Patrick Schmid

 

[Patrick Schmid]

Has anyone already bugged this via Connect?

Patrick Schmid

 

[Rainald Taesler]

Has anyone already bugged this via Connect?

Sorry I cannot so.
I would assume that I could not be the first person to stumble over
this issue (or would really nobodxy work with Acrobat???) an this
should have been reported long ago.

*I* for one have not posted any bug so far.
As said in a number of threads: the kerberos just won't let me in
[siiigh].

Raianld

 

[Rainald Taesler]

Patrick Schmid <[email protected]> shared these words of
wisdom:

Ask any Outlook or Word MVP on those. E.g., the tools are still
not compatible with Outlook 2003 SP2.

Really?
Could be that I missed that because I'm not doing too much with
Outlook and using the PDF-maker in Outlook is not an everyday's
operation on my side ;-)

They don't uninstall the UI correctly when removed.

If this would be the only thing, so what?
As long as MS is unable to provide the same functionality, the old
German saying applies: "With the blind the one-eyed is the king".

And of course they are totally useless with 2007.

This argument is unfair.
It's not logical. Something like apples and bananas ;-)

In fact, they are so utterly useless that they are the #1 reason for
crashing Outlook 2007 whenever you write a new message or open an
existing one (believe me,
you get pissed at the tools after writing 5 times a day that they
are the cause for Outlook
crashing). In addition, in Word e.g. all that they do is show
their UI, but none of the buttons actually work.

I won't deny that!
To the contrary: I would not have expected the PDF-maker add-ins to
work with most of Office 2007.
Things in Word f.e. have been changed dramatically, not only as far as
the UI is concerned but mainly in the programmatically internals.
So any third-party software not just being trivial, naturally will
have to be re-designed. And what the PDF-Maker does is anything but
trivial - it's not just simply a printer driver based on PostScript!

So IMO no-one can complain that the routines written for Office 2003
don't work in 2007. One just has to wait for new PDF-Maker tools.
I can't say if Acrobat had planned that all as it had been the loudly
announced intent of MS to integrate PDF creation into Office (which -
according to the news - we probably won't see as the negotiations have
not been brought to a good end [siiiigh]).

No idea on how the PDF export features planned for Office were
designed by MS.
If all they have to offer is what we find in the ON 07 beta, one can
(as we call it over here) just "feed it to the rabbits" <d&rvvf>.
It's just *useless* in its present state as it has no advantage over
printing through the printer driver.

I am not referring to the Adobe PDF printer driver.

Again: Apples and bananas!
That's something totally different.

That one I use myself a lot and have no issues with. It's just those
add-ins they wrote, that are a piece of crap.

Sorry, this is truly offensive.
And you have no right to say so when you are trying to use an add-on
tool with software for which it was not written.
The PDF-makers totally depends on the file-format and structures of
the Office applications. And - as you'll probably might know better
than me - these have been changed severely.
So it just cannot work.

Rainald

 

[Patrick Schmid]

This argument is unfair.

It's not logical. Something like apples and bananas ;-) Nah, it's fair.


I won't deny that!
To the contrary: I would not have expected the PDF-maker add-ins to
work with most of Office 2007.
Things in Word f.e. have been changed dramatically, not only as far as
the UI is concerned but mainly in the programmatically internals.
So any third-party software not just being trivial, naturally will
have to be re-designed. And what the PDF-Maker does is anything but
trivial - it's not just simply a printer driver based on PostScript!

Actually the Word object model hasn't changed dramatically. Most add-ins
I know of still work fine.

So IMO no-one can complain that the routines written for Office 2003
don't work in 2007. One just has to wait for new PDF-Maker tools.
I can't say if Acrobat had planned that all as it had been the loudly
announced intent of MS to integrate PDF creation into Office (which -
according to the news - we probably won't see as the negotiations have
not been brought to a good end [siiiigh]).

We will actually see it. It's going to be a free, separate download
though. So nothing has changed here.

Sorry, this is truly offensive.

Yes it is offensive. I program add-ins myself and I spend a lot of time
making sure that they behave extremely nicely. I can expect from a
company like Adobe to create add-ins that are well written and forward
looking. Other companies can do it, but Adobe can't.

And you have no right to say so when you are trying to use an add-on
tool with software for which it was not written.
The PDF-makers totally depends on the file-format and structures of
the Office applications. And - as you'll probably might know better
than me - these have been changed severely.
So it just cannot work.

Sure it could. They probably wrote them using unsupported shortcuts
instead of using the correct methods. Their problem and I will call them
on it for as long as I live.

Patrick Schmid