A client called with an issue extracting a section from a large (1000+ page) pdf document. They has asked a colleague to try this and using the Windows 10 feature Print to Pdf they could generate a new document with the required pages. The client was using Cute PDF (not on Windows 10) for normal pdf production without incident for quite some time. The result of them trying to create the new pdf was in fact a two page virtually blank corrupt pdf!
On inspection the pdf had error which was Error: undefined Offending Command: eexec
After some research I found a number of articles that had the same issue across a number of pdf printer applications and in some cases an encrypted pdf which wasn’t true in this case.
After confirming the issue on another PC running windows 10 I located another pdf generation tool Soda PDF. Installing and testing this (free version) allowed me to open and extract the required pages using the sod pdf printer driver. So repeated the install on the users machine only to find that the printer driver which had previously installed fine was missing !!
After removing and reinstalling the app – the printer was still AWOL so contacted support, They immediately provided some documentation about how to install the printer component but still it didn’t appear. I noticed that one of the users printers in control panel was showing an exclamation mark and when I check turned out to be a printer they no longer had. Removing it and following the steps again produced the desired result – we now had a SodaPDF printer.
End result – we could generate the extract from the pdf from other PDF readers like Adobe reader (using the soda pdf printer) or using the Soda editor itself.