Adobe PDF documents

The Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) was developed by the Adobe company to provide a universal file format that preserves the fonts, formatting and graphics of a source document, regardless of what platform or application was used to create it. PDF files can be shared, viewed and printed by anyone with a free Adobe Acrobat Reader. We’ve provided this basic primer on PDFs because many SongWriter users want to create PDFs: to publish on the Web, to E-mail to a friend, to give to publishers for further formatting, or to give to a print shop for printing. In order to *create* PDFs, you will need to buy Adobe Acrobat. For more information about these products, please visit Adobe’s website at www.adobe.com.

To create a PDF document from a SongWriter notation file

There’s more than one way to create a PDF, but this method will give you more control over the results. See your Adobe Acrobat manual for full details.

1. Open the file in SongWriter.
2. From the File Menu, choose Print. The Print dialog box appears.

3. Click on Setup. The Print Setup dialog box appears.
4. From the Printer Name drop-down menu, choose "Acrobat Distiller" or "Acrobat PDF" (or whatever Adobe PDF print driver is installed on your computer). Keep in mind, you’ll need to switch the printer back to your regular printer when you’re done creating PDFs.
5. Click OK. If your document has parts, select which ones you would like to print using the score/parts check boxes in the upper left. Adjust any other print settings.
6. Click OK. SongWriter begins printing using the Acrobat Distiller. If Distiller is running in the background (you’ll see it at the bottom of your screen in the Taskbar), it will immediately launch the Acrobat Distiller. Once the Distiller has launched, it will display a Save PDF File As dialog box.
7. Give the file a name (you may wish to save it to the Desktop for convenience) and click Save. The Acrobat Distiller creates a PDF of your file. Depending on your Distiller Assistant settings, it may open your newly created PDF file for viewing.

Troubleshooting PDF documents

For complete information, see your Adobe Acrobat Exchange documentation. The below suggestions are problems that SongWriter users have commonly encountered.

Problem: When I run the Distiller, I get the error message “...[font name] cannot be embedded due to licensing restrictions.”

Solution: Update to the newest Acrobat Distiller version. For more information, visit www.adobe.com or call 1.800.272.3623. A quick and dirty workaround is to change to Outline in the Fonts/Send Fonts As portion of the Distiller printer driver.

Problem: I’m using my PostScript printer instead of the Distiller driver. Now I’m getting a SongWriter­Dict error.

Solution: Some drivers seem to require an additional setting for SongWriter’s mixed graphics and fonts. To correct the problem, exit all programs, including SongWriter. From the Start Menu, choose Settings, Printers. Right-click on the printer and choose Properties. Click on the PostScript tab. Set the PostScript to Optimize for Portability. Click the Apply button, then OK. Close the Printers window and try again. If you still receive errors, or your printer driver does not have a PostScript tab, try the suggestion below.

Problem: I’m using my PostScript printer instead of the Distiller driver. I’m still getting a SongWriter­Dict error, even though I’ve tried Optimize for Portability.

Solution: Some drivers seem to require an additional setting for SongWriter’s mixed graphics and fonts, but the driver doesn’t allow for Optimizing. Exit all programs, including SongWriter. Navigate to your SongWriter folder and double-click on a file called SongWriter.ini (It may just be called SongWriter, and the icon will look like a notepad.) The file will open in Notepad. The first section of this file is under the heading [Settings]. Add another line in this first section with this text:

OwnPS=0

Then Save and Exit the Notepad. Try creating a PDF again.

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