Prev: Unable to convert Q2000 data to Q2009
Next: Sorting same date transactions within a given account
From: Ken and Jane Becker on 28 Dec 2009 11:05
On 12/28/2009 3:21 AM, John Pollard wrote:
> Robert Neville wrote:
>> "John Pollard"<8plus7isf(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Why does the Quicken PDF "printer" (which, it should be noted, is
>>> not an Intuit product) not allow what non-Quicken PDF "printers"
>>> allow?
>>
>> If memory serves, Intuit licensed the PDF driver from Amyundi (or
>> someone similar), who also sells the driver as part of a complete PDF
>> package. Presumably, to avoid any potential canibalism of the package
>> sales, they imposed the restriction to only work with Quicken and to
>> restrict other features in the driver like scaling.
>
> Yes, the Quicken PDF printer is licensed from Amyuni (who also sells a
> more complete product). But I don't see how that would explain
> restricting the use of print scaling. That the "free" Amyuni PDF printer
> only works with Quicken makes sense to me; restricting features normally
> available with many (most?) printers, including free PDF drivers, doesn't.
>
> What could Amyuni gain from such a restriction, especially once everyone
> finds out that free PDF printer drivers can be used with Quicken with no
> restriction on print scaling?
>

John,

A slight correction. It's not what >Amyuni< could gain from the
restriction. A wild but probably accurate guess is that Amyuni pays
Adobe licensing fees for the use of Adobe's technology; in turn, Intuit
pays Amyuni a per-copy fee for the fees associated with Amunyi's
technology; and, finally, we all pay for the various licensed
technologies with each copy of Quicken that we buy.

So, everybody pays. However, Adobe has open-sourced the PDF format. Now,
open source players like PDF Creator are up and running on Source Forge.
It's free, as in both beer and cost. This means that Intuit can make
more profit by halting payments to Amunyi and providing Quicken for
either the same cost (boo) or lowering the cost to customers a bit (yea).

In any case I find PDF Creator more stable than the Intuit/Amunyi
offering, so I go with that.

K. Becker

From: John Pollard on 28 Dec 2009 13:09
Ken and Jane Becker wrote:
> On 12/28/2009 3:21 AM, John Pollard wrote:
>> Robert Neville wrote:
>>> "John Pollard"<8plus7isf(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Why does the Quicken PDF "printer" (which, it should be noted, is
>>>> not an Intuit product) not allow what non-Quicken PDF "printers"
>>>> allow?
>>>
>>> If memory serves, Intuit licensed the PDF driver from Amyundi (or
>>> someone similar), who also sells the driver as part of a complete
>>> PDF package. Presumably, to avoid any potential canibalism of the
>>> package sales, they imposed the restriction to only work with
>>> Quicken and to restrict other features in the driver like scaling.
>>
>> Yes, the Quicken PDF printer is licensed from Amyuni (who also sells
>> a more complete product). But I don't see how that would explain
>> restricting the use of print scaling. That the "free" Amyuni PDF
>> printer only works with Quicken makes sense to me; restricting
>> features normally available with many (most?) printers, including
>> free PDF drivers, doesn't. What could Amyuni gain from such a
>> restriction, especially once
>> everyone finds out that free PDF printer drivers can be used with
>> Quicken with no restriction on print scaling?


>
> A slight correction. It's not what >Amyuni< could gain from the
> restriction. A wild but probably accurate guess is that Amyuni pays
> Adobe licensing fees for the use of Adobe's technology; in turn,
> Intuit pays Amyuni a per-copy fee for the fees associated with
> Amunyi's technology; and, finally, we all pay for the various licensed
> technologies with each copy of Quicken that we buy.
>
> So, everybody pays. However, Adobe has open-sourced the PDF format.
> Now, open source players like PDF Creator are up and running on
> Source Forge. It's free, as in both beer and cost. This means that
> Intuit can make more profit by halting payments to Amunyi and
> providing Quicken for either the same cost (boo) or lowering the cost
> to customers a bit (yea).

I have no argument with what you say; but where does that leave you on the
reasoning behind why Amyuni would be restricting their Quicken PDF printer
to be unable to do print scaling?

Doesn't it still seem like there is less chance of Intuit paying Amyuni
anything, if Quicken users can get a better PDF printer driver somewhere
else, for free? Doesn't Amyuni want to be the provider of a PDF printer
for Quicken? If they do, and they are providing a hamstrung PDF printer,
aren't they less likely to continue to be chosen to provide that PDF
printer, as Quicken users catch on?


I only got into this somewhat side issue in an attempt to see whether any
insights to the original problem might be found in the fact that only
free, non-Quicken, PDF printers seem able to do print scaling. Are there
any real printers, that are still able to do print scaling in Q2009 and
Q2010?

If Amyuni has intentionally blocked print scaling, then there would seem
to be no relationship between the failure of the Quicken PDF printer to
allow print scaling and the failure of other printers to allow print
scaling in Quicken (since, I think it's a safe bet that the other printer
manufacturers didn't intentionally restrict print scaling when their
printers were to be used with Quicken).

But if Amyuni didn't intentionally restrict print scaling; what common
treatment would Quicken give to the Amyuni PDF printer and to other real
printers ... but not give to the free PDF printers (which all seem to
allow print scaling) - that would restrict print scaling.

--

John Pollard


From: Ken and Jane Becker on 28 Dec 2009 18:26
On 12/28/2009 1:09 PM, John Pollard wrote:
> Ken and Jane Becker wrote:
>> On 12/28/2009 3:21 AM, John Pollard wrote:
>>> Robert Neville wrote:
>>>> "John Pollard"<8plus7isf(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Why does the Quicken PDF "printer" (which, it should be noted, is
>>>>> not an Intuit product) not allow what non-Quicken PDF "printers"
>>>>> allow?
>>>>
>>>> If memory serves, Intuit licensed the PDF driver from Amyundi (or
>>>> someone similar), who also sells the driver as part of a complete
>>>> PDF package. Presumably, to avoid any potential canibalism of the
>>>> package sales, they imposed the restriction to only work with
>>>> Quicken and to restrict other features in the driver like scaling.
>>>
>>> Yes, the Quicken PDF printer is licensed from Amyuni (who also sells
>>> a more complete product). But I don't see how that would explain
>>> restricting the use of print scaling. That the "free" Amyuni PDF
>>> printer only works with Quicken makes sense to me; restricting
>>> features normally available with many (most?) printers, including
>>> free PDF drivers, doesn't. What could Amyuni gain from such a
>>> restriction, especially once
>>> everyone finds out that free PDF printer drivers can be used with
>>> Quicken with no restriction on print scaling?
>
>
>>
>> A slight correction. It's not what>Amyuni< could gain from the
>> restriction. A wild but probably accurate guess is that Amyuni pays
>> Adobe licensing fees for the use of Adobe's technology; in turn,
>> Intuit pays Amyuni a per-copy fee for the fees associated with
>> Amunyi's technology; and, finally, we all pay for the various licensed
>> technologies with each copy of Quicken that we buy.
>>
>> So, everybody pays. However, Adobe has open-sourced the PDF format.
>> Now, open source players like PDF Creator are up and running on
>> Source Forge. It's free, as in both beer and cost. This means that
>> Intuit can make more profit by halting payments to Amunyi and
>> providing Quicken for either the same cost (boo) or lowering the cost
>> to customers a bit (yea).
>
> I have no argument with what you say; but where does that leave you on the
> reasoning behind why Amyuni would be restricting their Quicken PDF printer
> to be unable to do print scaling?
>
> Doesn't it still seem like there is less chance of Intuit paying Amyuni
> anything, if Quicken users can get a better PDF printer driver somewhere
> else, for free? Doesn't Amyuni want to be the provider of a PDF printer
> for Quicken? If they do, and they are providing a hamstrung PDF printer,
> aren't they less likely to continue to be chosen to provide that PDF
> printer, as Quicken users catch on?
>
>
> I only got into this somewhat side issue in an attempt to see whether any
> insights to the original problem might be found in the fact that only
> free, non-Quicken, PDF printers seem able to do print scaling. Are there
> any real printers, that are still able to do print scaling in Q2009 and
> Q2010?
>
> If Amyuni has intentionally blocked print scaling, then there would seem
> to be no relationship between the failure of the Quicken PDF printer to
> allow print scaling and the failure of other printers to allow print
> scaling in Quicken (since, I think it's a safe bet that the other printer
> manufacturers didn't intentionally restrict print scaling when their
> printers were to be used with Quicken).
>
> But if Amyuni didn't intentionally restrict print scaling; what common
> treatment would Quicken give to the Amyuni PDF printer and to other real
> printers ... but not give to the free PDF printers (which all seem to
> allow print scaling) - that would restrict print scaling.
>
John,

The only thing I can think of is that Amyuni was charging Intuit more
for each and every feature they could turn on or turn off. If I'm not
mistaken, I'm pretty sure that the inclusion of Amyuni's technology
predates Adobe's open sourcing of the PDF format; at the time, it was
considered a nice benefit to Quicken users to be able to print reports
to PDF, which could then be mailed, archived, or whatever. So, Intuit
would have gone for the option that cost the least: Locked to Quicken,
least number of features, etc.

Remember, the alternative, if one wanted PDF's, would be to buy the full
version of Adobe Acrobat. A quick search on Google shows that that costs
around $100 nowadays; back then, I think it was over $200. So, a
locked-down, cheap version of Acrobat would have been a good deal for
Intuit and its customers.

Time have moved on. The open-sourcing occurred, I think, about three
years ago. One can still do (relatively) amazing things with Acrobat;
but, for generating PDF's for general print-driver style of use, the
price has dropped to zero. I think it likely that Intuit will simply
replace Amyuni with one of the open-source solutions. All they have to
do, at least with the GNU GPL, is provide the unmodified source files
with the open sourced solution with the CD and/or download.

It's hard to compete with free, as in cost. If Amyuni had wonderful
features that was better than the open-source versions, then there'd be
an argument for Intuit to hang on to the Amyuni solution. However, it
looks like Amyuni has run in the opposite direction.

Regards,

Ken Becker



From: Richard on 31 Dec 2009 17:20
Well, I've procrastinated long enough. It's time to bring this subject up to
date with my findings. When you read this, you understand why I'm done
dealing with this subject. I'm too old for this.

THE BOTTOM LINE:

Of my two printers of chose, I can either use the Canon i9900 physical
printer or the PDF995 printer for Quicken.

Once I make my selection, I can not switch from one to the other without
"screwing up and making unusable, within Quicken, the PDF995 Printer. For
example, if I run a report and using the Canon printer. I cannot run that
same report using the PDF995 printer. I get a error "Unable to verify active
printer at the system level". Quicken Article ID: 4245 addresses this issue
but the solution doesn't work for me.

If I use the PDF995 printer, I have full report generation capability
including paper size, through the printer properties, and "page scaling"
within Quicken. Under NO circumstances, do I have "page scaling" using the
Canon printer.

As a result of the above, I have selected the PDF995 printer as my printer
of choice because it allows full page setup control. I can archive reports
and print paper copy from the archive, if desired.

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS AND OBSERVATIONS:

All of the above was discovered through trial and error (a lot more error by
far). I ended up uninstalling, reinstalling and performing system restores
multiple times before finally understanding my options. (Note: I never
claimed to be the fastest draw in the west).

Without going into excessive detail, I performed actions using the following
basic steps.

1. I uninstalled Quicken 2008 and both the Canon i9900 and PDF Printers.
(Note the PDF printers were uninstalled either in conjunction with Quicken
or through the software uninstall programs feature of Windows 7.

2. I followed all of the steps outlined in Quicken Article ID: 4108
"Using QcleanUI to uninstall Quicken.

3. I also uninstalled TurboTax 2009 on the assumption that Quicken and
TurboTax shared some components. (This was a big mistake as explained
later.)

4. I reinstalled Quicken 2008 using Windows Vista compatibility and "run
as administrator".

5. I reinstalled PDF995 via software. (Note, the Quicken PDF printer,
which in my opinion is absolutely worthless, is installed as part of
Quicken.)

6. I plugged the Canon i9900 into a USB port and let Windows and Windows
Update find the driver. (This is the recommended method for this printer.
Windows 7 has a specific driver for this printer.)

TURBOTAX REINSTALLATION WOES:

I followed the uninstall steps in Quicken Article ID: 4108 for both TurboTax
and Quicken, for reasons previously stated. Where the Article indicates to
"delete" a Quicken folder, I ACTUALLY deleted the Intuit folder which
includes sub-folders for both Quicken and TurboTax. While not creating a
problem when reinstalling Quicken, it created a "disaster' when reinstalling
TurboTax. TurboTax would not install and I would get an Error Code: 1402
related to a *.msi issue. The specific msi file name would change with each
reinstall attempt.

I spent hours on the telephone with TurboTax tech support and they concluded
that it was a Windows installer issue and referred me to Microsoft. Fat
change Microsoft would talk to me with an HP OEM version of software so I
called HP tech support and spend more hours on the telephone, they concluded
it was a TurboTax problem and referred me either back to TurboTax or to
their "for fee" support. During the TurboTax failed install process, I had
an option of send an error report to TurboTax with additional comments. I
elected to send it with some "not so nice" comments never expecting anything
to come of it.

A TurboTax engineering ACTUALLY responded via email with a command prompt
solution that resolved the problem. While I don't understand the solution
completely, I can tell that it as a command to fix a corrupt registry entry.
I was then able to install TurboTax without issue and it is now fully
functional.

All of the above confirms to me that I know just enough about computers to
"get into real trouble". I just have to learn to "leave well enough alone".
I suppose "playing around and tweaking" is fine if you have a separate
system to do it on. But, when you only have one computer, it's probably not
advisable to do things via "trial and error".

Thanks to everyone, in this thread, that tried to offer solutions and I wish
each of you a HAPPY NEW YEAR!
--
Thank You,
Richard

"Richard" <Reply(a)Newsgroup.Thanks> wrote in message
news:hh6dab$srh$1(a)news.eternal-september.org...
> I have a new HP Pavilion dv7t-3000 computer with 4GB of ram and a lots of
> storage. The problem experienced was also experienced on my old Gateway
> Performance 850 computer running XP3This leaves me to believe that it's an
> issue with Quicken 2008. By the way, the old machine is no longer
> available for testing.
>
> PROBLEM:
>
> When printing reports, any report, the "Page Scaling" options are "grayed
> out" on all available printers with the exception of "PDF995 on Ne00:. In
> addition to the PDF995 printer, I also have available the following
> printers:
>
> Microsoft XPS Document Writer on Ne01: (I don't use it for Quicken.
> Probably not even possible.)
> Quicken PDF Printer on LPT1: (I have tried it, but it has the same
> problem.)
> Canon Inkjet i9900 on Ne02: (This is my DEFAULT printer and the one I
> really want to use.)
>
> Since the only printer that allows "page scaling" is the PDF995, I need to
> print to PDF whenever I have a need to page scale. Of course then, I can
> print the PDF file on the Canon Inkjet i9900. This is an acceptable "work
> around" but I'd really like to be able to print directly using the Canon
> i9900. The Canon i9900 does work great, as long as I don't have to page
> scale.
>
> Since even the Quicken PDF Printer displays this issue and the fact that
> this issue surfaced immediately when Quicken 2008 was installed on my
> "old" machine, I suspect the problem is within Quicken 2008.
>
> Two years ago, when this problem surfaced during "initial" installation,
> Intuit Technical Support was no help. They had me reinstall both the
> software and my Canon i9900 printer driver. Now that I have a new system,
> I thought that I would again attempt to find a solution.
>
> During the installation, 2 years ago, the data files were converted from
> Quicken 2005. I don't remember having a problem at the time of conversion
> and I have not experienced any database issues either on my old, or now on
> my new computer.
>
> I have "super validated" a copy of my Quicken file and there were no
> issues. However, I'm wondering if the problem may lie in one of the
> Quicken files other than QDF. Any opinions? If so, please provide
> "specific" corrective action instructions.
>
> I have not seen this problem addressed on any forum, newsgroup or web-site
> previously. I find it hard to believe that I'm the only experiencing it,
> especially on two different computers running two different operating
> systems.
>
> Any assistance, greatly appreciated and pardon the long post.
> --
> Thank You,
> Richard
>
> P.S. John Pollard, I'd be interested in your take on this, since you have
> a very comprehensive knowledge of Quicken's "nuts and bolts".

First  |  Prev  | 
Pages: 1 2 3
Prev: Unable to convert Q2000 data to Q2009
Next: Sorting same date transactions within a given account