Dov, Amazing. You described the exact problem we are concerned about at my company (and why I left Acrobat 5 on my system). We are using Acrobat 7 but set the compatibility to Acrobat 6 in case some of our users are using an older version. But even so, we are getting some complaints from the field that they can't open the PDF files. After much discussion about setting the compatibility back to Acrobrat 4, we decided instead to put a note on the web page telling them to upgrade their copy of Reader if they are having trouble opening the files. We included the link to the Adobe download page to encourage them to do it. This is much better than conpromising the quality of the manuals because a few people have not updated their systems.
The puzzling part of the problem was that I was able to open the files on a system that has only Acrobat 5 installed. I got a warning message saying that some features might not be displayed correctly but the file did open. The support guys at my company could not open the files at all. If you have any ideas on what the problem might be, I'd appreciate it. Is there a difference between how Acrobat looks at a PDF file (for reading) than Reader does? Thanks, Diane (cleaning system now) ======================= -----Original Message----- From: Dov Isaacs [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Sunday, August 05, 2007 2:02 PM To: Diane Gaskill; Framers (E-mail) Subject: RE: Multiple versions of Acrobat on same system? Although (very unfortunately), it is PHYSICALLY possible to have multiple versions of Adobe Acrobat concurrently installed, concurrent versions of Adobe Reader concurrently installed, or some combination of versions of both Acrobat and Reader installed, the truth is that the architecture of these programs and the underlying operating system services used by same really only fully supports installation of only one version of EITHER Adobe Acrobat or Adobe Reader on one system at one time. I am sure we will get the inevitable responses from members of this list that boast about how they have multiple versions and/or mixtures of Acrobat and Reader concurrently installed and somehow get some or most of the functionality to work for them. On the other hand, there are a tremendous number of problems reported to Adobe that are suddenly cleared up when the user's systems are scraped of all concurrent versions of Acrobat and Reader, replaced by a single version of one or another. (Note that by "Acrobat" I mean any and all pieces of it including the Distiller, the AdobePDF PostScript printer driver instance, and the viewing program!) But, some list members will complain, how do I know what the recipients of my PDF file will see on their systems if I also don't have a copy of Reader installed, or perhaps multiple versions of Reader and Acrobat installed? The response to that is to have test systems (or separate test partitions of your one system) that have minimal software installations (especially fonts) and a copy of the target version of Adobe Reader. That is the only way to truly simulate the user experience. For that matter, old, slower systems are even more appropriate! - Dov > -----Original Message----- > From: Diane Gaskill > Sent: Sunday, August 05, 2007 12:43 PM > > I've read several discussions on this list about multiple versions of FM > runing on the same system (it works). Can multiple versions of Acrobat also > run on the same system? I recently installed Acrobat 7 on my system (XP2) > but did not uninstall Acrobat 5. Acrobat 5 now displays an error message > and closes. > > From the messages below, it sounds like the answer is no for Distiller, but > what about Acrobat itself? > > Thanks, > > Diane > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Dov Isaacs > > If you let FrameMaker's install perform the installation of > the stand-alone Distiller, make absolutely sure you UNINSTALL > that version of Distiller and reboot before attempting to > install any version of Acrobat! > > - Dov
