How can I set 'Adobe PDF printer' as one of my printer choices?

The one 'Adobe PDF' choice I have is "AdobePDFPDE700" which has a line drawn through it ... and a pop up box that appears to tell me:

The bundle "AdobePDFDE700" could not be loaded because it does not contain a version for the current architecture. (Contact the bundle's creator listed here for the latest version. AdobePDF 7.0.0 Copyright 2003, 2004 Adobe Systems Inc. etc. etc. etc)

That means the version of Acrobat currently on that Mac doesn't work with the installed OS. Upgrading it with the available updates though may get it to work.

So Adobe has neatly prepped all dozen updates after 7.0 to 7.1.4, ready for download. Only, the very first update, the one ESSENTIAL for all the others to work, is only available for the Swedish version.

Hmm, I see all the ones you need on this page.

The Swedish update is 7.0.0. You want to start with the 7.0.1 update just above that. Which one you grab depends on if you installed Acrobat Standard or Pro. Then work your way up through 7.1.4. Actually it's best to launch Acrobat and then choose Help > Check for Updates. You may be able to skip a lot of the updates as they may be compiled in 7.1.4. The updater will tell you which one to get next instead of just downloading all of them and installing in sequence.

Or, go to the Utilities folder and run the Adobe Updater. It should do the same thing and download only what's necessary in the proper order. You would run the updater, install what it says you need, then run it again. Repeat until it tells you there are no more updates.

It's the very last instruction which is giving me a bit of grief. On the 'layout popdown' menu there is no "Adobe PDF Settings" to click.

The one 'Adobe PDF' choice I have is "AdobePDFPDE700" which has a line drawn through it ...

I cannot remember what Acrobat Pro 7.x looks like and whether Adobe changed the driver name from Acrobat to Adobe with version 7 or 8, so it may say Acrobat PDF Settings. The Adobe PDF Settings choices in the Print window should be those that are in the folder where you moved the Lulu joboptions file. A couple of those files are named Standard.joboptions and Press Quality.joboptions. Do you have those?

I'm using OS 10.5.8, Pages 4.0.3, and Acrobat Pro 8.3. Since your OS and Acrobat Pro are different versions, the following screenshots of the print window within Pages might be helpful. (click on them to see larger images.)





In this case, I would click on Smallest File Size to get a pop up list to then select a different setting. In your case, you want the Lulu setting.

Hopefully, the updates to 7.1.4 will work.

Ben Low wrote:
I see by your notes that I've probably got a corruption issue.

Hmm...not sure how you conclude that since we are using different versions of the OX and Acrobat. I do not know what version of Pages you are using too.

...I tried the update - over and over again, different updates, nothing working until I finally got the message that the app I was trying to update was not a legitimate version.

Some users have experienced the same with various versions of Acrobat updates. You did not state the method you tried with the updates. Did you do as Kurt Lang suggested or manually download and install the patches?

Kurt Lang wrote: "[In] Acrobat and then choose Help > Check for Updates. You may be able to skip a lot of the updates as they may be compiled in 7.1.4. The updater will tell you which one to get next instead of just downloading all of them and installing in sequence."

That said, 7.0.5 would be your first update because it is a cumulative patch that includes all the fixes in versions 7.0.1, 7.0.2 and 7.0.3. Again, you did not state, so if you have not already done so, you might consider re-booting your computer and run Repair Disk Permissions with Disk Utility to try to get around the "not a legitimate version" issue. Then try updating within Acrobat Pro as Kurt suggested.

With your setup are you able to produce a successful PDF from Pages through the Adobe PDF Printer?

Yes, but I do not know about resolution with drop shadows and etc as I rarely use them. Actually, I rarely use Pages. I've only been using it recently because the multilingual MS Word documents created on a PC would not open properly in Word 2004. (Typeface and unicode issues from the PC.) The project was a monthly newsletter for a local public school and I needed to make low-res PDFs to post on the school's website. I use Quark XPress and Adobe apps for all lithographic printing. Those apps have the precision capabilities not found in a wordprocessing app, especially typography. My prepress and print vendors all roll their eyes when they get Word documents... With printing direct to the Adobe Print driver, I do not touch the Colorsync option. All the necessary specs are in the joboptions file.

Or ... is it possible that I can do this without actually having Acrobat Pro installed?

Well, you do not have to use the Adobe Print Driver to make a PDF. You could try Save as PostScript document with the OS. Then launch Acrobat Distiller (included with Acrobat Pro). Select the Lulu joboptions for Default Settings. Go to the File menu, select Open and find your document. Distiller will run through its paces and produce a PDF. (Printing to the Adobe Printer essentially does the same thing but in less steps.)

Though if the Adobe PDF Settings is not showing up properly in the print setup then I suspect this does have something to do with the installation of the Acrobat Pro.

The Adobe PDF Settings that I referred to (and in the screenshot) is in the Print window NOT Page Setup.

Have you tried making a one page document and sending that to Lulu or other printer that you use as a test? (Note: Print press differ and even the same press can produce different results. The ultimate test is your own eyes.)

HTH ~L