PDFMaker unavailable in Office 2003 and earlier on Windows

The PDFMaker icon (Convert To Adobe PDF) and the Acrobat menu are missing from a Microsoft Office 2003, XP, or 2000 application (for example, Access, Excel, Word).

Do one or more of the following solutions:

Solution 1: Remove Adobe PDF from the Disabled Items list in the Microsoft Office application.

Note: Microsoft Office Applications disable add-ins as a failsafe if the application is prematurely closed (for example, system wasn't shut off properly or the application crashed).

Solution 2: Make sure PDFMaker components are installed.

Solution 3: Enable the COM add-in file in the Office application.

Solution 4: Rename the Normal.dot file.

To prevent the formatting, autotext, and macros that are stored in the global template (Normal.dot) from affecting the behavior of Microsoft Word and other applications, rename your global template (Normal.dot). When you do so, you can quickly determine whether the global template is causing the issue.

Important: When you rename the Normal.dot template, you reset several options to the default settings, including custom styles, custom toolbars, macros, and AutoText entries. Therefore, Microsoft strongly recommends that you not delete your Normal.dot file.

Certain configurations may create more than one Normal.dot file. For example, this issue may occur if a computer runs more than one version of Word or if several workstation installations exist on the same computer.

To rename the Normal.dot file:

Note: The following steps are specific to Microsoft Word, but may also be used with slight modification for other Microsoft Office applications. Do not use the /a switch to restart Word or another application after you complete these steps.

On Windows 2000:

If you resolve the issue when you rename your global template, the issue is a damaged Normal.dot template.

Solution 5: Change the security level of macros in the Office application.

For the COM add-in file to load into Windows, either the Trusted Publishers tab must list Adobe Systems Inc. or the security settings must be changed.

In Office 2000, XP, or 2003 applications:

Solution 6: Add the COM add-in file to the Windows registry.

regsvr32 "C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 8.0\PDFMaker\Office"

Solution 7: Run Detect And Repair while no other applications are running.

Solution 8: Remove and reinstall Acrobat in Simplified mode.

Device drivers and software that loads automatically with Windows (for example, screen savers and virus protection utilities) can conflict with the Acrobat installer and cause problems. To prevent conflict, reinstall Acrobat while Windows is in Simplified mode. In Simplified mode, nonstandard device drivers and startup software are disabled.

To remove Acrobat:

To reinstall Acrobat in Simplified Mode:

Solution 9: Remove macros from Word.

Note: If the Convert To PDF icon is still missing, choose Tools >Templates And Add-ins and make sure the removed items don't appear. If removed items do appear, remove the macro from Word or remove the application that installed the macro into Word.

Solution 10: Remove other COM add-in files from Word.

Solution 11: Repair Access. (Access only)

If you installed Access 2000 after you installed Office XP or Office 2003, you must perform a Repair of Office for the PDFMaker menu to appear.

Solution 12: Customize the Toolbar options. (Access only)

Solution 13: Remove previous-version PDFMaker files from the system.

Note: This search may take several minutes depending on the speed of your system.

Solution 14: Remove Microsoft Works.

Adobe has verified that Microsoft Works conflicts with Microsoft Word and will prevent the Convert to Adobe PDF menu from appearing in Word. Microsoft Works is pre-installed on many computers.

To remove Microsoft Works:

Additional Information

Acrobat 7.0-8.0 installs a COM add-in file to the Acrobat 7.0/PDFMaker/Office or Acrobat 8.0/PDFMaker/Office folders. This file provides PDFMaker icons and menu commands for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Publisher and Project. The COM add-in file must be checked into the Windows registry before it appears in applications.

PDFMaker icons don't appear in the toolbar if an Office application crashes and disables the COM add-in file.

Other COM add-in files and macros may conflict with the COM add-in file for PDFMaker and may prevent the Convert To PDF icons from appearing in the toolbar.

In Access, if the Utility1 Toolbar isn't enabled for viewing, then PDFMaker icons won't appear.

329044: Message "Missing PDFMaker files" when you right-click a file to convert to PDF

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