Framemaker 10 prints very slowly to pdf

Question

I am running win64 and do a lot of pdf generation in FrameMaker 10 using the Acrobat X printer driver. But printing to pdf is very slow. I have tried whatever suggestions I could find in groups. Setting the printer driver to  file did not help. Juggling PDF verision compatibility did not help either. I cannot change resolution because the results may become too low rez.
My  book files consists of some fifty pages with each an externally linked pdf file. The pdf file links are cad drawings and they can be pretty complex. I usually save the linked pdf files with pdf optimized in order to make the files lighter.
But still ... printing to pdf takes around 15 minutes. I was wondering wether there are any other ways of speeding up the process besides adjusting settings in the printing process. Is it possible to assign more processors or more ram for instance ?
regards
Bjørn

Answer 1

Check your printer driver settings. The tips below were posted by Dov Isaacs, PDF expert at Adobe, many years ago, but some of them may still be valid.
Printer driver instance:
Properties => Advanced (tab)
         Change "Print directly to the printer" to
         "Spool print documents so program finishes printing faster"
                 with "Start printing after last page is spooled" (**)
         Why? Speeds up spooling process dramatically!
Properties => Advanced (tab) => Printing Defaults ... (button) => Layout (tab) => Advanced (button)
         Open trees and make sure that the following are set
         (other options leave at original default settings):
                 Graphic => Print Quality => 600dpi
                 Why? Gets around known Windows 2000/XP GDI bug associated
                 with large point size & high resolution text being converted
                 to outlines. Also gets around FrameMaker bug associated with
                 higher resolution settings in combination with large page sizes
                 (similar bug in other applications as well). Using this setting
                 does not restrict the resolution at which the PDF file can
                 print and has no known bad effects.
                 Graphic => TrueType Font => Download as Softfont (*)
                 Why? Turns off damnable font substitution mechanism.
                 Document Options => PostScript Options =>
                         TrueType Font Download Option => Native TrueType (*)
                 Why? Assures that proper font type is selected, even if not
                 embedded in job stream at this point. "Automatic" should work,
                 but this is explicit.
Properties => Advanced (tab) => Printing Defaults ... (button) => Adobe PDF Settings (tab)
         Choose appropriate joboptions
         Check ALL the boxes.
         Why? Best options for making sure that the correct fonts are
         embedded properly in the PDF file, that you are properly prompted
         for location of the PDF file being produced, that you are warned
         if overwriting an existing PDF file, and to display the resultant
         PDF file delete the log file if and only if the distillation is
         successful.
Properties => General (tab) => Printing Preferences ... (button) => Layout (tab) => Advanced (button)
         Open trees and make sure that the following are set
         (other options leave at original default settings):
                 Graphic => Print Quality => 600dpi
                 Why? Gets around known Windows 2000/XP GDI bug associated
                 with large point size & high resolution text being converted
                 to outlines. Also gets around FrameMaker bug associated with
                 higher resolution settings in combination with large page sizes
                 (similar bug in other applications as well). Using this setting
                 does not restrict the resolution at which the PDF file can
                 print and has no known bad effects.
                 Graphic => TrueType Font => Download as Softfont (*)
                 Why? Turns off damnable font substitution mechanism.
                 Document Options => PostScript Options =>
                         TrueType Font Download Option => Native TrueType (*)
                 Why? Assures that proper font type is selected, even if not
                 embedded in job stream at this point. "Automatic" should work,
                 but this is explicit.
Properties => General (tab) => Printing Preferences ... (button) => Adobe PDF Settings (tab)
         Choose appropriate joboptions
         Check ALL the boxes.
         Why? Best options for making sure that the correct fonts are
         embedded properly in the PDF file, that you are properly prompted
         for location of the PDF file being produced, that you are warned
         if overwriting an existing PDF file, and to display the resultant
         PDF file delete the log file if and only if the distillation is
         successful.
Properties => Device Settings (tab)
         Open trees and make sure that the following are set
         (other options leave at original default settings):
                 Output Protocol => Binary
                 Why? Much more efficient than ASCII, PostScript file size
                 reduced by up to 30 to 40% (your mileage may vary!).
                 Sent CTRL-D Before Each Job => No
                 Sent CTRL-D After Each Job => No
                 Why? CTRL-D is inconsistent with binary PostScript interpreters
                 even though Distiller has hackery to try getting around such
                 spurious characters.
                 Convert Gray Text to PostScript Gray => Yes (*)
                 Convert Gray Graphics to PostScript Gray => Yes (*)
                 Why? Normally, black and grayscale text and vector artwork
                 is output as RGB values. These options convert any R=G=B text
                 and vector artwork to PostScript grayscale. This is much more
                 efficient and can avoid improper "rich black" syndrome on
                 certain PostScript color output devices.
                 Add Euro Currency Symbol to PostScript Fonts => Yes (*)
                 Job Timeout => 0 (*)
                 Wait Timeout => 0 (*)
                 Why? This eliminates the possibility of jobs being prematurely
                 terminated if some other task on your computer hiccups too
                 badly for too long.