Problems Viewing and Printing PDFs Created from FrameMaker

Question

I got no responses to this issue in the Acrobat forums (I posted 6 days ago), so since at least some of the PDFs were created through FrameMaker, I am posting here to see if anyone in this forum has seen the problem.
At our company, we regularly create PDFs, usually from FrameMaker version 9. In most cases, we have no problems with the PDFs, but once in a while, we are notified that customers get the following problems:
If they try to print the PDF, they see a series of messages which consistently include "The document could not be printed" and "There were no pages selected to print." If they choose a page or range to print, this often works, but certain pages will not print. In one case, I saw a message saying there was a problem with the PDF with the number 14, but this does not always appear.
Often, the pages that will not print, when viewed at a normal magnification, appear as very small thumbnails that look like the dotted line down a black highway. The rest of the pages are at a normal magnification and can be read.
Often, these same PDFs crash when certain bookmarks are clicked.
This always seems to happen when the PDFs are viewed within a browser on our website or in our web-based software. I've been told by our tech group that it happens in other browsers, not just Internet Explorer, and it still happens if they save the PDF out of the browser down to the desktop and try printing from there.
In the cases I've seen, when I go back and look at the original generated PDF file in Adobe Reader or Acrobat (not within a browser), none of these problems occur. Redelivering the file to the web location often fixes the problem.
I've read many posts about this in various locations on the Internet and one in the Adobe Forums, but none seem to come up with the cause to this problem - they just come up with workarounds for printing the file.
One other note - one of our engineers and tech writers found that one PDF with this problem appeared to have Fast Web Viewing turned off, even though nothing was done differently when the PDFs were generated.
Does anyone have any information on what causes this problem and how we can avoid it?
Tammy

Answer 1

I'm not sure why, but my original post came through blank. Here is a
second attempt:
> Often, the pages that will not print, when viewed at a normal
magnification, appear as very
> small thumbnails that look like the dotted line down a black highway.
The rest of the pages
> are at a normal magnification and can be read.
I almost didn't reply to your post because I'm not sure that I am making
anything but a wild guess. But I seem to recall many years ago that
there were some reports on the frameusers.com listserv of some PDF pages
showing up as tiny pages-- similar to what you describe. I'm not sure if
I can trust my recollection, but I THINK the fix was to go into the PDF
printer properties, and reduce the dpi setting from 1200 to 600 or even
300. I don't remember the exact reason, but I think it had something to
do with a problem in the way Windows GDI interacts with documents
containing large-size type (such as 72-point glyphs). Anyway, I may be
remembering it wrong, or may be off on the wrong track altogether, but
it won't hurt to make the change and try. You can always change the
setting back.
And if it doesn't work, consider posting your operating system, Acrobat
version number, and whether or not FrameMaker 9 is fully patched. It
might help someone else chime in with help.