PDF Objects not accessible

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donne
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PDF Objects not accessible

Post by donne » Sat Jan 15, 2011 12:39 am

I have associated PDF files as 'objects' with some person and family data forms. Recently these seem to have become inaccessible. I can see the thumbnail and the title when I open the 'Objects' window, but when I try to open the file, an error message pops up saying 'Device not ready'.

Does anyone know what could have gone wrong? I'm sure I could access these files a few weeks ago, but since then I may have downloaded updates to my operating system or my PDF reader.

Roger

Nick Hunter
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Post by Nick Hunter » Sun Jan 16, 2011 9:04 am

Hi,
You may need to reinstall your PDF reader. Are you still able to open PDF files on your hard drive just by double-clicking on them?

donne
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Post by donne » Tue Jan 18, 2011 5:44 pm

Hi Nick,
I can always open up PDF files on my hard drive by double clicking using my default PDF viewer which is Adobe Reader.
Roger

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Post by Nick Hunter » Tue Jan 18, 2011 7:58 pm

Hi,

The message "Device not ready" is usually associated with a hardware device such as a drive or network device, so I'm wondering if your linked objects (ie. the PDF files) have somehow been moved.

Are you able to add a link to a new PDF file in K&KPro?

donne
Posts: 80
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Location: UK
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Post by donne » Wed Jan 19, 2011 10:25 am

I've now checked to see if I can create new PDF objects and I find that I get the same 'Device not ready' message.

The procedure I use is to go into the Objects window, right click on the thumbnail window and get up the menu with only 'insert' highlighted. Clicking on that brings up a list of applications and the top of the list is Adobe Reader 7.0 (the version on my PC). Clicking on Adobe Reader brings up 'Device not ready'.

Just below that in the applications list is 'Bitmap' and I can click on that and that seems to work (bitmap application registered is Microsoft Paint).

Roger

Nick Hunter
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Post by Nick Hunter » Wed Jan 19, 2011 10:49 am

Hi,
You may need to upgrade to Acrobat Reader V9.

donne
Posts: 80
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Post by donne » Wed Jan 19, 2011 5:53 pm

Well, I went to the Adobe website and downloaded and installed Adobe Reader X (apparently version 10, superseding 9). Now, when trying to create a PDF object, I see in the applications list Adobe Acrobat Reader. I click on that, the window goes lilac colour and everything freezes. After a while I get the error message 'Server execution failed'.

Update: Sorry, I know I can't create a PDF with Adobe Reader, but I do get the same behaviour and the error "Server execution failed" when I try to open one of my previously-stored PDFs objects.

I have also conducted a test by changing my default PDF reader in XP to a package called PDFViewer which I prefer in some ways. I have created a test PDF file from a desktop publishing program called Serif PagePlus and inserted that as an object. This test object now opens from KKPro using PDFViewer. However all the previously created PDF objects still seem to be inaccessible. Is there any way I can link them to PDFViewer?
Roger

Nick Hunter
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Post by Nick Hunter » Sat Jan 22, 2011 8:53 am

Hi,

Both your original error "Device not ready" and the new one "Server execution failed" seem to suggest that the Adobe Reader has been trying to access something on a drive or network device which is no longer available.

Are your PDF objects stored in K&KPro or just links to external files? If they are stored in K&KPro you may not be able to recover them unless you can resolve the Adobe Reader problem. If they are external PDF files you can just create new objects linking to the files again.

donne
Posts: 80
Joined: Wed Dec 28, 2005 12:46 pm
Location: UK
Contact:

Post by donne » Sat Jan 22, 2011 12:31 pm

Hi,
To be honest, I'm not sure if I created them as links or embedded them in KKPro. Is there a way of telling from the Objects form? I'm fairly certain I would have embedded them in KKPro to make the database self-contained and independent of any reorganisation of my folder structure. The original files still exist somewhere on my computer so I could delete and recreate them in KKPro, although I would like to understand what is happening with Adobe Reader and KKPro since otherwise the Reader seems to work normally.

Would any of the KKPro database fixing tools (Pack and Repair) do any good?

Roger

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