On Oct 31, 2019, at 2:00 PM, Robert McKeever wrote: > I’ve tried PDF View, and the PDF’s fail to load. Works fine on the Mac.
This turns out to be a rather complicated and tricky area. First, just to get it out of the way, I’ve never had any trouble opening PDFs on macOS with Preview. It just works. Doesn’t complain that the PDF is damaged or that “an error exists”. Don’t matter if the PDF was created on macOS, on Windows with PDFCreator or on Windows with Microsoft Print to PDF (any version). No issues on macOS. But recently I had to deal with a problem where a client reported they could not open a PDF generated by 4D that was emailed to them. I could open the PDF on macOS no problem. I could also open the PDF on Windows 10 using the default Edge web browser. But the PDF would not open using the most current version of Acrobat Reader DC. The PDF would open and part of it would display, but not all of it. You would receive this message: “An error exists on this page. Acrobat may not display the page correctly. Please contact the person who created the PDF document to correct the problem.” https://www.dropbox.com/s/wiz1a4ef04xucxg/Acrobat%20Reader%20DC%20Error.PNG?dl=1 The PDF was created by 4D v17.3 HF1, on Windows Server 2016 Datacenter version 1607 build 14393.2097, and using the built in Microsoft Print to PDF printer driver. (All this version info turns out to be important.) I could reproduce the problem on that machine, but on my development machine the PDF created would opened without error in Acrobat Reader DC. My machine was Windows 10 Home version 1809 build 17763.775. I had access to several machine with different version of Windows that were running the same 4D database, so I did a test to see what machines had the problem. Windows Server 2016 Datacenter version 1607 build 14393.2097 — error Windows 10 Home version 1809 build 17763.775 — no problem Windows 10 Pro version 1803 build 17134.523 — no problem Windows 10 Home version 1809 build 17763.737 — no problem I then switched from Microsoft Print to PDF driver on the problem machine and used PDF Creator 1.7.3. Problem disappeared. So that became the solution. I say all this to let other know a few things I’ve come to realize: 1. Just because a PDF opens on macOS is not a guarantee that it will open on Windows with Acrobat Reader DC 2. The default PDF viewer app on Windows 10 is the Edge web browser. It is more tolerant to “PDF issues” than Acrobat Reader DC 3. Some versions of Microsoft Print to PDF printer driver are — for lack of a better term — sh*tty. It can make PDFs that Acrobat Reader DC cannot open. (Do some Googling and you will see other have run into this too.) 4. Some versions of Microsoft Print to PDF printer driver are better than others. And Microsoft does not provide a way to download Microsoft Print to PDF printer driver separately. It is part of a Windows install or update. 5. The exact same PDF created from the same 4D app on the same machine using PDF Creator is usually many times smaller — 8 times smaller in this case — than the one created by Microsoft Print to PDF. (PDF Creator PDF size = 42KB, Microsoft Print to PDF PDF size = 340KB) So it’s not always what program you use to view a PDF that can be the problem. It is what PDF printer driver was used to create it, and which version of that driver that you use. Tim ***************************************** Tim Nevels Innovative Solutions 785-749-3444 [email protected] ***************************************** ********************************************************************** 4D Internet Users Group (4D iNUG) Archive: http://lists.4d.com/archives.html Options: https://lists.4d.com/mailman/options/4d_tech Unsub: mailto:[email protected] **********************************************************************
