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No Save As PDF option

Sabbath

Sabbath

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Sep 18, 2003
534
0
London
I need to email out an application form, which is currently a word document. I don't really like sending out word documents as you never know if they really are going to display correctly on the other persons computer, especially when presentation is important. So I want to convert it to a pdf.

At this point I'm feeling smug that I have a mac and its really easy, but my "Save As PDF" is greyed out, scrrenshot attached. After a bit of investigation it turns out that it is greyed out in every app I try. Is there any reason for this to occur, could I have changed a preference somewhere or something. I know it was there and working a month ago.

If anybody could supply an answer, I would be really grateful. Otherwise I guess I will just have to hope a word document will be ok.


OS X 10.3.6, office 2004 (w/ all updates)
 

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that's kinda odd... uhm.. try selecting "No Printer Selected" or something from the Printer drop down... see if that helps?
 
jackieonasses said:
So when you go to File --> Save As--> PDF it is greyed out there too?
Click to expand...

odd because in office 2004 that option doesn't exist on my machine... the only way i can save as pdf is by going to print, then Save as PDF

:-/ i looked for this option but figured that if mine doesn't have it, no one's does.. thinking it might have been a work around for the original poster...
 
Logik said:
the only way i can save as pdf is by going to print, then Save as PDF
Click to expand...
Nevermind: your screen shot is in the Print dialog

Wait, Your preview button shouldn't be disabled either, so I am guessing this has is your problem - since preview is converting to PDF.

Did you delete Preview or change permissions on the application?

Try repairing permissions if you haven't deleted Preview.
 
Logik said:
that's kinda odd... uhm.. try selecting "No Printer Selected" or something from the Printer drop down... see if that helps?
Click to expand...

I don't seem to be able to select that, I either have to select my printer, an rendezvous or bluetooth printer, or I can edit the printer list or check for updates. There is no select no printer option.
 
Sabbath said:
I don't seem to be able to select that, I either have to select my printer, an rendezvous or bluetooth printer, or I can edit the printer list or check for updates. There is no select no printer option.
Click to expand...

ah ok, i don't have a printer installed on mine. so i was thinking maybe something to do with the printer you had selected was causing the problem but apparently not. forget what i said :)
 
kingjr3 said:
Nevermind: your screen shot is in the Print dialog

Wait, Your preview button shouldn't be disabled either, so I am guessing this has is your problem - since preview is converting to PDF.

Did you delete Preview or change permissions on the application?

Try repairing permissions if you haven't deleted Preview.
Click to expand...

I haven't touched preview and it is at least still there and works, I don't think I could have done something to it accidentally. I'm repairing permissions now, hopefully that'll fix it.
 
Does save as pdf work in other applications? The way Office handles this function apparently isn't quite right under the best of circumstances. I know whenever I try to save a pdf out of Word, the default file name is "Formatting Pallet" since that's always the active window in Word. You might also want to look at the "output options" menu in the print dialog.
 
IJ Reilly said:
Does save as pdf work in other applications? The way Office handles this function apparently isn't quite right under the best of circumstances. I know whenever I try to save a pdf out of Word, the default file name is "Formatting Pallet" since that's always the active window in Word. You might also want to look at the "output options" menu in the print dialog.
Click to expand...

Save As PDF does exactly the same thing in every app I have tried, text edit, safari and even when I'm looking at a pdf in preview!

The formatting pallet gives me some odd options as well. PDF is always grayed out (see the first screenshot), and is selected as the type by default but when I check the "save as" box, it automatically switches to postscript (see the second screenshot).
 

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kingjr3 said:
So no luck with this, eh?
Click to expand...

No, unfortunately it made no difference and I can't seem to find any other ideas to fix it.

Hopefully I'll get an interview for this job and can go to the Apple Store genius bar while I'm in London.
 
Just for kicks (if you have time) create another user account and see if you see the Preview/PDF print options while logged in as that user. If you don't, I would venture to guess either (a) something is missing (b) permissions are wrong and weren't caught by repair.
 
I am assuming you don't have the full version of Acrobat installed? If so, you can add an Adobe PDF printer.

You may also want to either delete and recreate your current printer, or add a new "dummy" printer. You can add a dummy printer by adding an IP Printing device - you can add it and select an HP or other color printer and see if that fixes it. Since both screen grabs show the same printer, I'm wondering if there's a problem with that driver.
 
kingjr3 said:
Just for kicks (if you have time) create another user account and see if you see the Preview/PDF print options while logged in as that user. If you don't, I would venture to guess either (a) something is missing (b) permissions are wrong and weren't caught by repair.
Click to expand...


Thank you, you cracked it, it's back when I try under another user account. Do you have any idea how I would figure out why it isn't working under my current account? I don't really want to shift everything across to a new user account, although I guess I could just set up another account for when I have to make pdfs.

Thank you again
 
If you haven't already done so - try running Console (in Utilities) and then bringing up the Print dialog - see if any error messages appear. This might give you some indication of what's going wrong.
 
Sabbath said:
Thank you, you cracked it, it's back when I try under another user account. Do you have any idea how I would figure out why it isn't working under my current account? I don't really want to shift everything across to a new user account, although I guess I could just set up another account for when I have to make pdfs.

Thank you again
Click to expand...

Well this is the more difficult part since we don't know if its a bad preference (plist) file or wrong permissions on a file/executable somewhere. You could always start by moving all the .plist files out of the Library/Preferences folder in your home directory.

If after moving these out (you don't need to delete) PDF saving works, I would slowly add them back one at a time to find the offending prefs file.
 
kingjr3 said:
Well this is the more difficult part since we don't know if its a bad preference (plist) file or wrong permissions on a file/executable somewhere. You could always start by moving all the .plist files out of the Library/Preferences folder in your home directory.

If after moving these out (you don't need to delete) PDF saving works, I would slowly add them back one at a time to find the offending prefs file.
Click to expand...

Yeah I just thought it could be a preference files and starting chucking out (just to the desktop) all the com.apple.print.* preferences and it seems to have done the trick. I'm just trying to determine which one the problem is right now. Thanks a lot for all your help, it really has made getting this form sent of so much easier.
 
Ah got it, it was a preference file called "com.apple.print.custompresets.plist"

Am I right to think I can just go ahead and trash this?
 
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