Problems Saving as PDF

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated June 20, 2022)
This tip applies to Word 2010

Louise has a system that has the Academic Professional version of Office 2010 installed. She has a problem generating a PDF file from within Word. When she goes to save a document, there are options concerning the format in which the document can be saved. When she chooses "save as PDF," she gets an error message: "Export failed due to unexpected error."

Several readers suggested that this isn't a Word problem, but instead is a problem with some Windows drivers. For them, the problem was fixed when they updated Windows as described in this Knowledge Base article:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2639417

Note that nothing in the article says anything about generating PDF files. Instead, it appears that the update takes care of modifying the drivers responsible for creating the PDF files, and this modification fixes the problem exhibited in Word.

If that doesn't work for some reason, you should try using an alternative method of creating your PDF file:

Click the File tab.
At the left side of the screen click Save & Send. (Don't click Save; look down further on the left side and make sure you actually click on the Save & Send option.) Word presents you with some more options.
Click Create PDF/XPS Document. Word displays a single button at the right side of the dialog box.
Click the Create PDF/XPS button. Word displays the Publish as PDF or XPS dialog box. This dialog box looks very similar to a traditional Open dialog box.
Specify a filename you want used for your PDF file.
Click on Publish.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (11430) applies to Microsoft Word 2010.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen...

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What is six minus 1?

2024-11-12 19:14:09

Cleveland Thornton

I want to report that the solution provided by Messers Peter Johnson, Michael Avidan (MVP), and Bob Beechey works like a charm and is very elegant. I tried the "#If Mac Then solution," which worked.

I have not tried the" If InStr(System.OperatingSystem, "Mac") Then" solution, but I will.

Thank you all very much for this response. I hope others find it useful, as well.

Cleveland Thornton

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