Adobe Reader 8 ruined Save as PDF in OS X

January 18, 2007 5:40 PM

I installed Acrobat Reader 8. OS X no longer prints to PDF. How do I fix that?

The PDF Workflow menu is missing, hidden, gone, obscured; as well as a little of the Cancel button. I know the PDF menu is there, because it appears briefly just after I click Cancel; too quickly to capture with Shift-Apple-3.
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The File menu option is gone.
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The checkbox under Output Options is greyed out.
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I followed the instructions for removing 6 or 7 on a Mac. That didn't work.

Reinstalled 8 and searched the help for 'uninstall'.
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No pages contain 'uninstall'.

The PDF Workflow menu should be enabled, un-hidden.
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After much Googling, I'm at a loss. It seems I could buy the full version of Acrobat, or reinstall OS X. What else can I do?

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

I think it's possible that this is a security fix. It used to be the case on OSX that you could print a password-protected PDF, tell it to output to a PDF file, and the new one would be unlocked.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 6:04 PM on January 18, 2007

"Note that the PDF workflow button is hidden by default. The button is enabled if the system detects the existence of either the /Library/PDF Services or the ~/Library/PDF Services directories, either of which can be created by the user.

"To add a menu item to the PDF workflow pop-up menu, simply add one of the supported item types to any of the following directories:

• /Library/PDF Services
• ~/Library/PDF Services
• /Network/Library/PDF Services
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 6:13 PM on January 18, 2007

I installed Acrobat 8 reader just the other day and haven't had a problem with 10.4.8.

What version of Mac OS X are you running? The File menu option went away in 10.4.

I think something like that happened when I ran 10.3. The square box for save as pdf in the print pop-up went away. I can't remember how I fixed it. It had nothing to do with Acrobat though. I think I re-installed the printer drivers.

Does this happen in every app you try to save as PDF, or just Safari. The HP printer drivers would cause Safari to crash when I tried to save as PDF. By changing the default to my other printer, that problem went away.

For grins I just went to the IRS website and clicked on the 1040 form. When I print -> save as pdf, I get a message saying I can't do that and that I should instead save the PDF from the acrobat plugin.

Is this just on the IRS PDFs that have the form fields that might be giving the save as PDF grief... or do all PDFs cause the problem.
posted by birdherder at 7:15 PM on January 18, 2007

I have Reader 8 on one of my machines, and your PDF in a Safari window experience isn't the same as mine.... I went to the same 1040 form you took a snap of, and I get an Acrobat toolbar across the top- print, save, go to, zoom, ect. My print dialog brings up a set of Reader options such as preview, scaling, auto-rotate, ect- you show the standard OS X dialog.

What if you downloaded that .pdf and opened it in Reader, outside of Safari?
posted by Steve3 at 7:27 PM on January 18, 2007

I'm beginning to suspect the HP printer drivers I installed last week.

What version of Mac OS X are you running?
10.4.something. The laptop's at home. I'm at the library.

The File menu option went away in 10.4.
Ok. So I am losing my mind, a little. I can deal with that.

Does this happen in every app you try to save as PDF?
Yes. Even TextEdit.

your PDF in a Safari window experience isn't the same as mine.
I have a different Safari plugin for PDFs installed. It's called Schubert|it. The problem I'm having began before Schubert was installed, I installed it based on some suggestions I read elsewhere, installing Schubert didn't fix the problem. It seems to be irrelevant.

I'm going to uninstall the HP 4210 All-in-One drivers and see if that works. Thanks for the pointers.
posted by airguitar at 2:47 PM on January 19, 2007