AEM forms PDF Generator service fails to export PDF/A-1b documents

Issue

The AEM forms PDF Generator service fails to convert a PDF document to PDF/A-1b document. The issue occurs on using the PDF Generator with Acrobat Classic.

Resolution

The PDF Generator service uses Acrobat to convert PDF documents to PDF/A-1b documents. The issue occurs on the machines which has automatic updates for Acrobat Classic turned on. Perform the following steps to resolve the issue:  

  1. Open Acrobat Classic.

  2. Go to Edit > Preferences > Updater.  Deselect the Automatically install updates option. Click OK.

  3. Repair Acrobat installation. Go to Help > Repair Installation. Complete the repair.

  4. Run PDF Generator utility.

    1. Download the AEM forms add-on package.
    2. Extract the archive. The archive contains the batch file to run PDF utility.
    3. Open the command prompt in elevated mode (with administrative privileges) and run the Acrobat_for_PDFG_Configuration.bat file. The batch file is at [extracted add-on package folder]\jcr_root\etc\packages\day\cq[version]\fd\adobe-aemds-common-pkg-[version].zip\jcr_root\etc\packages\day\cq[version]\fd\adobe-aemfd-pdfg-common-pkg-[version].zip\jcr_root\etc\fd\pdfg\tools\adobe-aemfd-pdfg-utilities-[version].zip