PDFMaker: play nice with XP!

January 30, 2006 3:49 PM

Adobe PDFMaker and its attendant Word toolbars only work on an Administrator Account. Is there a way to make it work on a Limited User account? I'm on Windows XP.

This information about a previous version seems to imply that what I want to do is impossible.

If users should have their day-to-day account be a Limited User for security, then programs should work properly under a Limited User account!

posted by stopgap to computers & internet (5 comments total)

They certainly should, but they're unlikely to unless large numbers of us vote with our wallets and boycott programs that don't.

Do you actually need PDFMaker? Would something like CutePDF do instead?
posted by flabdablet at 4:02 PM on January 30, 2006

Oh, yeah: once you get on an angry-with-Adobe roll, it's hard to stop. Reef out the Adobe Reader bloatware and install Foxit Reader instead.
posted by flabdablet at 4:04 PM on January 30, 2006

I used another PDF writer utility for Word 2003 that would allow me to print to a pdf file. It required that I had GhostScript installed, and I originally downloaded the file from Download.com, but I cannot remember the name of the PDF creator.

Aside from that, I've heard good things about PrimoPDF. I have not used it myself, but the free version looks to be more than good enough to use.
posted by Jim T at 5:46 PM on January 30, 2006

Sigh. I found the problem myself. For future reference:

Under Help | About Microsoft Office Word, there is a button labeled Disabled Items.... This led to a list that included PDFMaker. I don't know how it got disabled, and I don't know why Microsoft located the button there, but I got PDFMaker back and it seems to work under my Limited User account.
posted by stopgap at 6:05 PM on January 30, 2006

Stopgap: I develop an outlook plugin, so I can say with some authority: If a Office COM Add-in crashes during certain startup or shutdown it will be added to the disabled items list, and not loaded any more.
posted by aubilenon at 6:33 PM on January 30, 2006