E-Maculation

On my old OS 9 G4 I had installed Adobe Distiller which enabled me to print Postscript Files as Adobe Acrobat PDF files. This was a tremendous help as I was printing complex music notation scores that used unusual graphics and fonts that almost no one has, and so these fonts would be embedded in PDF. I see - in Sheepshaver (I installed the COI version) - there is a Print to PDF in the Chooser, but this prints blank pages of my music notation files. I also see a Laserwriter 8 option in the Chooser, but it has the option of "Acrobat PDF" greyed out. And so, I am assuming that if I can install the Adobe Distiller files into my SheepShaver/COI app, then this option will work. However, I am not sure how to install Distiller into SheepShaver. When I tried to simply add the Distiller app into my OS 9 apps folder, I got a message that some other components of Distiller needed to be there. And so, I am guessing that somewhere I have the original Adobe CD that does the installation. But how do I install it now?

Or, another question is --- does there exist another Print to PDF app that will actually create PDF files of my files? Because the one provided by SheepShaver COI clearly does not work for my music app.

(Using a 2013 Mac Pro running OS 10.9.5)

Sort of a tangent -- I remember having this issue with the Print to PDF Chooser extension back in the day, specifically surrounding printing from music notation software. What I ended up doing instead was using the Print to PICT Chooser extension, and then printing the image file. This of course results in a bitmap instead of embedded vector postscript, so you lose some resolution.

I do recall getting Distiller working too; I think there was both an app and a chooser extension that needed to be installed, and also some sort of printer description needed to be added to the system folder. I think the only way I got all the components to line up was using the Acrobat (4?) installer.

The PrintToPDF Chooser extension only uses a limited set of fonts that are used to replace the fonts in the original document and these fonts are not embedded in the PDF file.

Setting up printing to a PostScript file is possible in SheepShaver and Preview in OSX can open that PS file. Printing or saving as PDF is then possible from Preview.

See our printing from SheepShaver and BasiliskII guide: http://www.emaculation.com/doku.php/she ... k_printing

Note that we do not support COI, but as COI contains a full OS9 installation and supports the Unix volume / shared folder feature, I suppose the different described printing setups can be used there also.

In my SheepShaver, I can set up Laserwriter 8 and print a PS file, and then convert it to a PDF file on the OS X side. HOWEVER, there is one big problem. For every file I print, I need to reset the Page Setup to print "large margins" for legal size paper. (It defaults to small margins.) Unfortunately, if I have 100 files (in my music graphics program) then I need to reset the Page setup each time. On my "real G4" computer, I used the Adobe Virtual Printer (as mentioned in my previous post - and this had no margins, so it was a lot faster to use. I guess I will have to see about installing the Adobe Virtual Printer, unless someone else has a suggestion?

I thought I used to create PS profiles under OS 9 back in the day as well? Then you set a default profile for your printer, and it'll keep those margins. Been a long time since I've done it, so I'll have to double check, unless someone else can verify one way or the other.

I think what you may need is here:

http://www.macintoshrepository.org/624- ... writer-4-0

Works under 8.6; you can print directly to PDF.

It's possible that a later version works under OS 9, but I haven't tried it.

The PDF writer is here since December 3, 2010 http://macintoshgarden.org/apps/adobe-a ... fwriter-40
when mathieudel decided to share it on Macintoshgarden.

Interesting. I simply posted the first thing I found in Google. But Macintosh Garden is where I normally start so I should have linked there instead.

Thanks. What I need is Adobe Distiller. Adobe Distiller is different from PDF Writer because it can print files that contain encapsulated post script, ie, postscript graphics files. However, I see that Macintosh garden side also has Adobe Distiller. So, Thanks for that!