3-16 Administrators Guide for Conversion
If a PDF is not generated when a file is checked into the content server, complete the following basic troubleshooting steps:
1.
Look at the Inbound Refinery and agent logs and identify which step of the conversion process failed printing to PostScript, PostScript to PDF conversion,
etc.. For more information about viewing Inbound Refinery and agent logs and enabling verbose logging for agents, refer to the Inbound Refinery Administration
Guide.
2.
If the file is timing out during conversion, first try checking in another, smaller, less complex file of the same type. If multiple files are timing out, adjust your
timeout values and re-submit the files for conversion. For more information about configuring timeout values, refer to the Inbound Refinery Administration Guide.
3.
If the file is failing to print to PostScript, try printing the file to PostScript manually. Most failure to print to PostScript issues are related to the following
possible causes:
■
The IDC PDF Converter PostScript printer is not installed.
■
The IDC PDF Converter PostScrpt printer is not named or set up properly.
4.
If the file is printing to PostScript successfully but failing to convert to PDF, again first try checking in another, smaller, less complex file of the same type. If the
problem is not specific to a single file, or you cannot identify a problem within the files that is causing the conversion to fail, the problem is most likely related to the
distiller engine that you are using.
3.3.2 Common Conversion Issues
Content items are often converted incorrectly, or not at all, for the following reasons:
■
Information within the document is outside of the documents print area :
Depending on the native application used to create the document and how your system is set up, a document is sometimes printed to a PostScript file, and the
PostScript file is then converted to PDF. Therefore, any information in the document that is outside of the documents print area will not be included in the
generated PDF.
■
Inbound Refinery is trying to convert a file that is not appropriate for the conversion engine
: For example, if a file from an application other than Microsoft Word has the extension doc, the document is opened in Microsoft Word, which is
not correct. The conversion will then fail.
■
The third-party application that is used for conversion starts up with items that require user interaction, such as startup dialogs, tip wizards, or update notices
: This prevents Inbound Refinery from processing and converting the files correctly,
and the conversion will time out. Always make sure that you turn off all such features before using a third-party application for conversion purposes.
■
The Inbound Refinerys Java Virtual Machine JVM is frozen: This is usually
associated with failed attempts to convert invalid file formats. Restarting Inbound Refinery will usually fix this problem.
■
Inbound Refinery did not have enough time to process the file: You can detect this by filtering for the conversion status PassThru in Repository Manager. You can
also look at the Inbound Refinery and agent log files. Prevent future occurrences of this problem by increasing the appropriate conversion factor on the Timeout
Settings page in the Inbound Refinery administration interface.
Working with PDF Conversions 3-17
■
The content item was converted correctly but you cannot view the generated PDF file in Adobe Acrobat or Acrobat Reader.
You might be using an old Acrobat version. In order to ensure that you can view all generated PDF files
correctly, you should always use the latest version of Adobe Acrobat or Adobe Acrobat Reader.
■
A Microsoft Office file and a link within that file does not convert correctly. It is
possible that the link is not formatted correctly or is not supported by Inbound Refinery. For details, see
Converting Microsoft Office Files to PDF on page 3-8.
3.3.3 Inbound Refinery Setup and Run Issues
