Making PDF in Mac

[BertBoye]

I have a db solution that is exporting PDF files to the local hard drive and in the script step it will also send the pdf file to a customer.

I done this in Windows using Affiler 2 and it work just fine, but Affiler 2 dose not work in Mac.

In Mac you can print to PDF directly but since I

[BobWeaver]

There is definitely a difference between OS9 and OSX when printing to PDF.

On OS9 you need to have the full version of Acrobat, or (much cheaper) a shareware driver called PrintToPDF from http://www.jwwalker.com/

For details of doing this with OS9, look at this post:

http://www.fmforums.com/threads/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=UBB8&Number=1458&page=1&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=365&fpart=1

For OSX, look here:

http://www.fmforums.com/threads/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=UBB20&Number=45677&Forum=All_Forums&Words=Creating%20a%20PDF%20w%2Fapplescript&Match=Entire%20Phrase&Searchpage=0&Limit=25&Old=1year&Main=45677&Search=true#Post45677

[BertBoye]

Thanks Bob for your reply.

It looks like it will be difficult to make a cross platform solution that will be installed by an install shield. The user will most likely have to setup the printer manually in OS X in order to get it to work. But I

[CobaltSky]

Hi Bert,

Keep an eye on 'AfFiler', which is a Windows plug-in from Afeina Software which generates pdf files from FileMaker without requiring any external drivers or other software (eg Actobat).

Afeina have indicated they are working on an OS-X version of AfFiler, and that it should be available some time this quarter.

Unfortunately, I understand that they don't plan to offer a Mac Classic version, but it sounds as though you might only need OS-X and Win?

[BertBoye]

I have the AFfiler all ready and it working fine but I don

[BertBoye]

I sent a mail to Affiler and they confirmed that they are doing a plug-in for Mac OS X so I guess that solves the problem for OS X. The plug-in is scheduled to come out within 60 Day from last week (1/20/03)

They also claimed that OS 9 are slowly going away and nobody will us it, what do you all Mac guys say about that are you all going to upgrade to OS X? or is this just a wish from software developer!!

[CobaltSky]

Well, it is interesting to note that in an email I had from Afeina dated 20 October last year, it was stated that the OS-X version would be released "in about 60 days". Well they're nothing if not consistent?!

As to the assertion that nobody is using OS9, I think that Afeina are being rather overly optimistic. A few of my clients are still on FMPv4, and I have one still using FMPv3. I suspect that it will be quite a few years before the numbers of OS9 computers start to seriously thin at various education and not-for-profit installations - not to mention a variety of non-critical corporate applications.

It's ironic that as developers we are called on to provide ongoing support, whereas vendors all the way from Apple themselves to FileMaker - and Afeina too it seems - can apparently afford to 'wash their hands'.

I suspect it is short-sighted, however. A truly x-plat plug-in (if it is any good) undoubtedly attracts a lot more purchasers - few serious FM developers can afford to commit to a single-platform product. I'd have thought that the extra effort to make AFfiler truly x-plat would pay off many times over. But I guess things must appear differently from the rare air of the Afeina headquarters...

[BertBoye]

I like people that is consistent so with other word do not hope for to mush.

I think however that the solution I done for now on the OSX platform work good.

I have a script that is checking the plat form and if it

[Steve T.]

RE: OS 9 migration to OS X

Actually, it's up to you, course, but I wouldn't recommend spending too much time on OS 9 compatibility. I had been a holdout til now but with the success of Mac OS X 10.2 jaguar and Apple's decision to have all new 2003+ models ONLY boot in Mac OS X is going to make this the Year of X more than any year past. Printer description files, device drivers, et. al. that kept me from switching before have all come out. There will always be small pockets of venerable, low-load systems out there with FMP 4.x on OS9 but the bulk of holdout users will migrate this year and I don't think even the remaining holdouts will expect YOU to holdout with them... They'll assume everything's for X only, anyway

What about Classic? Well, although Classic is available, I find it disruptive to workflow and think folks will opt for native X applications, too. Sitting there waiting for OS9 to start really bugs and training new users in both OS's is a hassle for us and confusing for them. I'm moving us over department-by-department so each office migrates all at once and I think this will be typical. Of course, being at an educational institution, we get FMP at discount prices. Hmm.. maybe Ray is right about FMP5 folks if they have to pay full price. I think the FMP 4's will go to X and FMP6 but the FMP5's may hedge and use Classic until FMP7.

Well, just adding 2 more cents to the pile!

--ST

P.S. For those interested, producing PDF's in X is as easy as printing--literally, but we still need the full version of Acrobat for producing our PDF's with fields, notes, and security.

[richshone]

To further the point made by Steve T. I would agree that this will be the year of X since yes, they are currently selling Macs loaded with only OS X. To make things worse (or better depending on your perspective), it seems the new Macs are not even able to load OS 9 even if you wanted to! Something to do with the Firmware I believe.

To me the worst nightmare that Apple can imagine is this: since they went to great lengths - for the sake of stability they say - to prevent users from accessing certain vital parts of OS X unless they were really qualified (as in Unix Hackers who can log in as Root), the capacity for old Mac users to boot into OS 9 and have the guts of OS X wide open to them to cause all kinds of havoc must have caused a lot of lost sleep in the past year and a half. OS 9 was DESIGNED to be toyed with and Apple surely knows that it has trained its users to think this way. Therefore, it is understandable that they would want to get rid of OS 9 (at least running on the same computer) as soon as conceivable.

I waited a full 18 months (what's that law say?) before buying a new Mac and for the most part love the direction it is all going, in the stability sense and in terms of workflow, connectivity, and the networking features. I am just waiting for a few key upgrades in the software end and I will be both fully on track, and speeding way ahead of my old system.

I firmly believe that since this system is designed FOR networking, the real power users will switch as soon as the horror stories trickle to a slow drip. Obviously, some places - like educational insitutions - will take more time since they have so much harware invested, but Mac has always been good to them as it is haven't they? Don't even worry about OS 9 is my conclusion... the light is near the end of the tunnel.

I just wish they offered a discount on the Filemaker upgrade... :-)

[BobWeaver]

I agree that OS9 is fading away quickly, but before you decide not to support it, you should find out what your target audience is using. There are still a lot of pre-G3 PowerMacs out there that can't be upgraded past OS9. I have clients with offices full of old Macs (a few of them still running system 7). To upgrade to OSX would mean replacing dozens of computers at each site which is a major expense considering that everything is currently running just fine for them.

[richshone]

One thing to point out is that in OSX, the claim that PDFs can be made directly from the system itself is a bit of a misunderstanding if you are trying to make files that are small enough to e-mail to people.

First and formost, even though the creation of PDF files is possible, there are no set up options on embedding the text, or for optimizing it for different print options - something achieved from Acrobat Distiller in the Acrobat suite. Second, it seems that if they went one way with this, they took the approach to make the files as big as necessary to achieve the best results when printing to color, with no regard at all to the file size. I went from printing Filemaker files that were in the 40-100k range to the same files being over 2 Meg! I went to the Apple Tech site and not one person could explain WHY this was ocurring or how to prevent it.

That was when I went out and bought a version of Acrobat 5. Even with the convoluted way that you had to print to Distiller in Classic mode (tossing all that scripting work I did to make it automated), it still made files the size you would expect for a PDF document. Of course, Acrobat 6 came out about 2 months after I paid for it, and now I have updated to it since it all works native in OSX. So far so good, and my scripts seems to work just fine now, even with the new OSX Print Center. Yippee!

May main point? forget about printing directly to PDF in OSX if you value small files. It won't ever work.

[ernst]

>>May main point?

>>forget about printing directly to PDF in OSX if you value small files.

>>It won't ever work.

Uhh? Did some testing with this and did not find the filesizes that big. For example a 20 page document, printed from Filemaker as .pdf file was 160KB.

We also use pdf files a lot when doing quotations via email, and a regular two page quotation with company logo on both pages takes something like 100KB, presumably mostly due to the logo.

Though I won't dare to say that this is the best that can be reached, it is more then adequate for our needs, and probably of more users.

Regards,

Ernst.