Microsoft PDF and XPS Add-ins and the 2007 Office Beta 2 Technical Refresh
It has been great to see the web buzz over the past few days over the availability on the Microsoft Download Center of the Microsoft Add-ins for Office 2007 for Save as PDF and Save as XPS. The better news comes today that you can now actually use these with the public release of the 2007 Office Beta 2 Technical Refresh. (The add-ins are specifically for Office 2007, and if you had Beta 2, then you already had the Beta 2 versions of these.)
While the PDF and XPS export add-ins are still at a beta stage, we have made a number of improvements since beta 2, so I encourage you to send your most complex documents through. If you use screen readers or other accessibility tools, let us know about our document structure tagging. If you submit documents to governments or archiving systems that require ISO-standard PDF, try out the ISO 19005-1 (PDF/A) support. If you have a PDF print workflow, send add-in generated documents through it. If you are already providing us with Office beta feedback (thank you), you can keep using the channels that work for you. If you are looking for a new way to provide feedback, you can use the Publisher 2007 Connect site for all PDF and XPS add-in feedback. (PDF and XPS bugs are most useful to us when you include the original Office document as well as the PDF or XPS.)
To view PDF files, you need a PDF reader. (Adobe Reader is a popular one.)
To view XPS files, you need an XPS reader. If you have Windows Vista RC1, then you should be set already. If you are running Windows XP (or 2000 or 2003), you can download the XML Paper Specification Essentials Pack to view XPS documents. Beta 2 of this pack was recently released.
Comments
Anonymous
October 04, 2006
Hej Jeff, the PDF export is really useful as one can now send content to people not having the program installed, making distribution of information easier :-D Great that MS is offering export to the de-facto standard format now. Though I experienced a major issue for OneNote usage: I often highlight (text marker tool) text to focus the attention to the relevant parts. In OneNote and MHTML export, the marked text is readable without problems, but the PDF export is quite hard to read. Please change the PDF export such that marking is a semi-transparent image instead of a "solid image with holes", as in certain zooms (e.g. 100%), exactly the holes disappear making it impossible to see any text. For me, the PDF export is completely useless until this issue is resolved. Maybe semitransparent images are not the best solution; Acrobat (using standard annotations) and PDF Annotator (using layers for annotations) may serve as inspiration. A screenshot is available at http://schoschi.de/texts/2006-10_SE_blog.shtml#10-03 All the best, GeorgAnonymous
October 04, 2006
He Jeff, I love many of the changes in Publisher 2007 especially the ability to export to pdf. However I must tell you I can not use your new version. I have yet to be able to print a 4 up postcard on my duplex printer with the front and back printing correctly as I do frequently in 2003. You've tried to make it so easy that I have no control and can not get the result I have to have. Terry Bailey 505-867-4110 it@grandriversupply.comAnonymous
October 09, 2006
The comment has been removedAnonymous
October 25, 2006
I will be taking a Publisher course next month (11/06) as I am interested in learning about designing marketing products and wanted to know if you suggest I wait to purchase Publisher 2007?Anonymous
October 26, 2006
Angie - your timing is good. We just announced our Technology Guarantee program that should allow you to buy Office (or just Publisher) 2003 now and get Office (Publisher) 2007 when it comes out for the cost of shipping and handling. (At least that's how the program works in the US and Canada. See the site for the worldwide details.) Specifics are here: http://www.microsoft.com/athome/techguarantee/worldwide.mspx Specific text from the web site: As a show of our appreciation to customers who acquire a qualifying Windows XP or Microsoft Office 2003 boxed product from a retailer or authorized Microsoft reseller during the qualifying eligibility period*, we are providing minimal cost** upgrades to Windows Vista and 2007 Microsoft Office software.Anonymous
November 02, 2006
I am working on Add-In application made for Office 2003.Now I got the task of making this Add-In compatible with Vista and Office 2007.We are working on Vista RC2 5744 and Office 2007 B2TR.One strange problem we are facing is that we are not able to access registry values. It is throwing exception as "Requested registry access not allowed". However, when we were working on Office 2007 Beta then it was working fine. I am User on that system with Administrative rights. can you help us in this. We were able to open it on Beta 2 but on B2TR we are unable to open itAnonymous
November 14, 2006
I am using Office B2TR and just today downloaded the savePDF addin, but when I use it in Word on a document that I have created and saved using the tool prior to B2TR, I get an error: "unable to complete export due to an unknown error". I have tried various combinations of the options settings with no change in result.Anonymous
November 15, 2006
I also get the above error as Greg does...Anonymous
November 15, 2006
Greg and Matt - The good news is that Office 2007 has gone to manufacturing and our RTM add-in bits are on the Download Center. The bad news for you guys (and anyone else who has B2TR but has not yet installed the add-ins) is that the B2TR add-ins are no longer available on the web. As you see, the RTM add-ins do not work with the B2TR Office bits. I am looking into whether we can temporarily make the B2TR add-ins available somewhere to tide people over until Office 2007 is broadly available. I will post something to this blog if/when we do get the B2TR add-ins up somewhere.
- Jeff Bell
Anonymous
November 15, 2006
I also get the above error as Greg does...Anonymous
November 18, 2006
When I go to print the PDF option, which is available in my 2003 version, I get an error and the program kicks me to the curb and tells me I own a demo version, which I don't, thank you very much. Is the only solution to purchase the upgrade when it comes out? Really? I don't use publisher that often, but when I do I have to output in a PDF. :(Anonymous
November 26, 2006
I just updated my 2007 b2 to the techical refresh and the publish as PDF stopped working from Visio (i get some unmeaningful visio internal error). I haven't tried from other programs yet. Very irritating, I used this all the time and now it doesn't work. I might as well get rid of the technical refresh. Has anyone else experienced this problem? Does anyone know how to fix it??Anonymous
November 26, 2006
Hi Jeff, I have downloaded pdf add in for office 2007 TR but when i am trying to publis, messages comes as "Document not Saved". I have tried over and over again, same message is appearing. I have windows XP home. How can I fix this?Anonymous
November 27, 2006
dt, Linda, Joe and Munish - this is a known issue with all B2TR apps since we replaced the B2TR add-ins on the web with the RTM ones. I am working to get this resolved and hope to have the B2TR add-ins back up by the end of this week. I will post a link to this blog once we get them live again.
- Jeff Bell
Anonymous
November 30, 2006
The B2TR add-ins are back! If you are running the Beta 2 Tech Refresh of Office 2007, then the version of the Microsoft Save as PDF and XPS add-ins that you need are live again here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=F2526138-33D1-4253-B298-F13D0DD987B7&displaylang=en While the installation for these is in English, they should work with any B2TR language of Office.Anonymous
November 30, 2006
Tried that link Jeff, this came up: The download you requested is unavailable. If you continue to see this message when trying to access this download, go to the "Search for a Download" area on the Download Center home page.Anonymous
November 30, 2006
Matt - sounds like the bits are still propagating through the system. I see them live now. If F5 doesn't fix things for you, then give it a few more minutes. (I wanted to bring the news to all of you who have been waiting as soon as I could.)Anonymous
December 01, 2006
I'll second the problem of Visio, once it has been updated with B2TR, PDF export not working at all. Prior to B2TR it had worked fine. I have now experienced this on 3 different machines (one running XP Pro, another XP Tablet 2005, and a 3rd one Vista RC1). Unmeaningful Visio internal error: #3400, Action 2117: Publish as PDF or XPS. First try closing and reopening the file. Next try restarting Visio.Anonymous
December 04, 2006
Jeffrey - sounds like you are trying to use the RTM add-ins with B2TR Office. Please try uninstalling the add-ins (from Add/Remove Programs) and installing the B2TR ones from: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=F2526138-33D1-4253-B298-F13D0DD987B7&displaylang=en Alternately, 60-day trials of the RTM versions of Visio and the rest of Office can be downloaded from http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/products/HA101741481033.aspxAnonymous
December 04, 2006
Linda Ensley - The Microsoft Add-ins for PDF and XPS do not install print drivers. If you are going through a Print path to get PDF, then you must have some third party PDF software installed and it sounds like it is that software that is giving you the 'demo version' error. Once the Microsoft Add-in for PDF is installed, you can get to it in Publisher 2007 under File/Publish as PDFAnonymous
January 31, 2007
I've been trying to add the pdf add on to my new computer running VISTA. However, I'm getting a message saying I don't have genuine Microsoft software and it won't let me validate and upload the add on. Has anyone else been having this problem? I bought the software at Best Buy and I'm assuming it is indeed genuine.Anonymous
January 31, 2007
Ron - I haven't heard of this from others and this is certainly not what is supposed to happen. I'll check into this with the Genuine Advantage people.Anonymous
February 01, 2007
Ron - (and anyone else seeing this problem). I don't know of other confirmed cases of Office 2007 false negatives, but if we are turning people away incorrectly we do want to get to the bottom of this. The best thing for you to do would be to post to the Genuine Advantage forum at: http://forums.microsoft.com/Genuine/ShowForum.aspx?ForumID=1005&SiteID=25. The Genuine Advantage people are very responsive to issues posted there.Anonymous
February 01, 2007
Please let me know what you find out. I've validated the software and it's still not letting me upload the add in. Very frustrating.Anonymous
February 14, 2007
found a little issue with embedded e-mail hyperlinks (mailto:) getting mangled (an extra mailto: prefix, which breaks addressing) when saving or publishing to either pdf or xps. this is on a clean machine install of the final release of publisher/office 2007 & the pdf & xps add-in. logged the issue via the connect site...just thought you might like a heads-up here.Anonymous
March 22, 2008
This feature is great but I just purchased office 2007 Enterprise and opened up publisher looking for a website template to use because vista has iis7 and realized the templates are useless... theres some great templates at www.freecsstemplates.org I hope you plan to add better web templates and integration with other microsoft products......