I have struck a little problem from time to time when trying to extract a chapter from a pdf book. I select the pages in Adobe Acrobat Pro, click extract, and get the message, "Wrong type parameter supplied to a PDS procedure". Nothing else happens.
I can try deleting thumbnails from the sidebar view, so that I eventually delete all the pages bar the ones I want to extract, then resave: but that often doesn't work either.
Many times I have gone hunting for a solution, and generally I get all sorts of rubbish about using InDesign, or deleting tags, or blah blah blah. However, recently I found an old solution which actually nearly worked. Although this particular set of instructions were apparently updated in 2022, the language is very old, and as it asked for use of Acrobat Distiller, which no longer exists... and has not existed for some time. As for the "nearly" worked, as Distiller no longer exists we needed another conversion method. However, there was an easy work-around using the 'new' Adobe Acrobat, making for a much simpler fix overall. And it does seem to work.
The repair is as follows (Adobe, 2022):
- Open the pdf in Adobe Acrobat
- Go to File | Export To | PostScript (not an encapsulated PostScript file; just a plain PostScript)
- Save the file with the desired name/location (changing the name if the original file is also in this folder is a good idea, otherwise it will be overwritten in the next step)
- In Adobe Acrobat, go to File | Create | From File. Select the .ps file and save as pdf. The new pdf will be saved in the same folder
- Check to see if the error still occurs, by having a crack at deleting a page.
While I have written about this error before (here), I think this is a simpler fix. I hope that helps!
Sam
Reference:
Adobe. (October 2022). Error: Bad parameter while deleting pages from a PDF. https://helpx.adobe.com/in/acrobat/kb/bad-parameter-while-deleting-pages-in-acrobat.html
No option for extract and no post script anywhere.
ReplyDeleteHi Volkmar, I am sorry to hear that. I have those options... and have no idea why you don't. Hmm. I wondered if you might be using Adobe Reader, not Adobe Acrobat?
DeleteI'm using Adobe Acrobat Pro XI. I got to the solution by using File | Save As Other | More Options | Postscript. I was able to use Sam's method; the newly created PDF file works the way it's supposed to.
DeleteThanks for that, Anonymous: glad it worked for you :-)
DeleteNice post
ReplyDeleteThanks Peter!
DeleteBrilliant!
ReplyDeleteGlad it was helpful!
DeleteBy exporting your PDF to PostScript you will lose your OCR and your highlightings and commentaries (highlightings will be converted to graphic mode). A better workaround in my experience: use a different PDF editor (I use ABBYY) or an online tool for splitting your PDF into single PDF pages (they will preseverve their OCR and editing) and then reunite them again into a single PDF (this latter task can be done with Acrobat). Afterwards test by extracting a few pages. Has always worked fine for me, and for long documents it works faster than conversion to and reconversion from PostScript.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your work-around, anonymous! I find that, on a 200+ page book, I just re-run the OCR after the postscript. For me that is easier than going page by page :-)
Delete