Problem with Adobe Acrobat Pro Extended version 9.3.4 reading Inventor 2009

Question

I would like to be able to generate 3D PDF files from Autodesk Inventor CAD models (e.g. .iam files) using Adobe Acrobat Pro Extended.  I am constrained to use Inventor 2009.  When I originally installed Acrobat Pro Extended, I was able to make this work after installing the IMPORT3D update at:
http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=4073
Recently (9/5/2010), I updated Acrobat Pro Extended to version 9.3.4.  I believe that following that update, I lost the ability to read in Inventor 2009 files.  Acrobat Pro Extended now gives the error messages:
"Exception has been raised" followed by:
"Acrobat could not open 'file' because it is either not a supported file type or because the file has been damaged (for example, it was sent as an email attachment and wasn't correctly decoded).  To create an Adobe PDF document, go to the source application. Then print the document to Adobe PDF."
This is exactly what happened when I first installed Acrobat Pro extended and before I installed the IMPORT3D update mentioned above.  I tried re-installing that update but now the installer gives the error message:
"No qualifying products found to apply this update."
Note that Inventor 2009 does allow one to "Save Copy As" to PDF format, but this just creates a 2D PDF snapshot of the current model view -- same for print to pdf.
I suppose one thing to try is removing Acrobat Pro Extended and then re-installing without the 9.3.4 update, but with the IMPORT3D update -- but if that is necessary, then I won't be able to take advantage of any further updates (e.g. security updates) to Acrobat, which seems like a bad situation.
Has anyone else had this problem? Or is it just me?

Answer 1

I may have figured out what was causing my problem with conversion of Inventor 2009 to 3D PDF.  After playing around with a number of inventor files, I discovered that the conversion worked fine when there were no references to external files.  For example a .ipt file (part file) seemed to convert fine.  I believe the problem was that on the form one obtains with Edit->Preferences->Convert to PDF->Autodesk Inventor->Edit Settings->Import->Assembly, the check box for "use root file directory" was NOT checked.  Oddly, this is the default and I'm pretty sure I tried setting the conversion options to the default.  In any case, I now seem to be able to perform the conversion of Inventor 2009 to 3D PDF so this problem is solved I guess.