🚀 go-pugleaf

Hello Sean,
I can see the "noise" may be confusing.

Ian (that's me) does not have any problems producing or printing PDFs. I do not have an HP5Si printer. The only reason I even mentioned the HP5Si printer was a test I did to help John Stodola find out why he's having problems installing his "AdobePS HP Laserjet5si MopierPS driver".

During that test I became curious about the "AdobePS" part he added to his printer driver name. I took this to mean he was using an Adobe PPD file somehow. So I investigated each of my three PCs here to find out more about PPDs. During that investigation I found lots of Adist4XX.ppd and Adist5XX.ppd files in each of my systems. Hence my 2 questions on how to establish which ppd file was being used by a given instance of the Distiller printer since none of the printer properties dialog boxes made any reference to ppd files.

To support my various clients I use 10 versions of Frame FM5.5.6 with and without SGML, FM6 with and without SGML, FM7 - each of these has English and French versions. I run these versions on Win2000Pro, NT4, or Win98SE according to the problem a particular client needs solving. Having encountered printing problems like John Stodola's at client sites I decided to get to the bottom of my confusion about Distiller printer instances working on what OS with which version of Frame. Dov's contribution dated December 6 last year explained a lot but did not cover all the PPD issues that might impact PDF production and printing. I was also a little handicapped by old memories of Acrobat 3 that you cleared up for me.

Now I have established that one way to find out which PPD file is in use by which distiller printer instance is to print a test page. The test page provides all the information needed about PPD file names in use and driver versions.

I have now compared all this information with Dov's note of December 6 and found that the reason I don't see any PDF production and printing issues is that, by chance rather than organization, I have the right distiller driver and PPD for each version of FM and for each OS. Now I have preferred PCs for versions of FM and a better understanding of what to do with my portable.

Thanks for the contributions Sean. I hope you're still coming to the UK in June for the several pints I must owe you by now.
Cheers
Ian