NitroPDF - fix for error message ZIEPDF. Cannot open the specified document! when using Internet Explorer - fix available for download
Older versions of NitroPDF have sometimes had problems with downloading and displaying PDFs via Internet Explorer - users would see the following error:
I hit this problem on our office network. After contacting the very responsive technical support team at NitroPDF, they sent me a replacement copy of ZIEPDF.ocx on 19 October 2006 that has fixed the problem.
NitroPDF have been kind enough to grant me permission to host the fix for the above error message - the replacement ZIEPDF.ocx can be found here:
http://www.ie-vista.com/data/ZIEPDF.zip
Rename the existing copy of ZIEPDF.ocx that you will find in c:\Program Files\Nitro PDF\bin and replace it with the new copy of ZIEPDF.ocx that is in the zip file. I used our SBS login script to automate this process at the office - it's completely painless :)
As noted in this technical document released 20 October 2006, the NitroPDF problem has been fixed in version 4.91 and later:
http://www.nitropdf.com/kb/article.aspx?id=10074
I am VERY pleased with our move away from Adobe Professional to NitroPDF. Some of my regular readers may know that my day job is as an IT Coordinator and that I recently had the (pleasure?) of being tasked with rebuilding an old, and neglected, network infrastructure from the ground up - by the time we were finished, all that remained of the old setup was two patch panels, one switch, one server and two PCs.
Anyway, as part of designing the new network we assessed our use of Adobe Professional. Adobe Professional was/is ridiculously expensive, at over $600 per person, and Adobe has been less than responsive, or easy to work with when I have had issues in the past.
We need more functionality than that which is offered by Adobe Reader (eg, creating PDF documents from within Word) and decided to go with NitroPDF, which provides the functionality of Adobe Professional at a fraction of the price (I'm talking less than a third of the price we were quoted for Adobe). Not only that, it is much faster than Adobe and less system invasive - a 100 page Word document is converted by NitroPDF into PDF format in only seconds. The company behind NitroPDF still has that personal touch and small business charm that makes working with them such a pleasure. Customer Service is a priority, not an afterthought.
Don't get me wrong - we faced issues with the roll-out of NitroPDF, but NitroPDF and the company that supplies our document management system, Worldox, responded quickly to my calls for help, and pretty much everything has been fixed. For example, there was no native integration between NitroPDF and Worldox. Worldox support fixed that problem very quickly, providing us with replacement *.ini files. When timing issues caused problems for us when trying to save PDFs via NitroPDF and Worldox, Worldox were again able to resolve our problems quickly and easily.
Rolling out the Worldox fixes was as simple as could be; I simply copied the new ini files to the Worldox network folder, and they were automatically copied to all desktops on log-in.
Only one issue remains, and that is that automated PDFs created with Adobe Distiller do not work in NitroPDF because Adobe Designer creates "XFA" based PDF forms, rather than the normal "acroform" based PDF forms that Adobe Acrobat and Nitro PDF Professional create.
Nitro PDF Professional can view forms that were created in Adobe Designer, but NitroPDF will not allow you to use the dynamic elements in these forms (e.g. a print button, dynamic page insertion, submit form button, etc). Because of this, we have *one* shared computer with a copy of Adobe Professional 7.0 installed that the staff use when we need to use a form created in Adobe Designer (which is not a regular enough occurrence to justify the ridiculous price difference between NitroPDF and Adobe Acrobat). Installing Adobe Reader on all machines is not an option for us, because to work properly with the Web sites that are hosting the Adobe Designer forms, Adobe Reader must be set as the default for PDF documents which is not acceptable.
I recommend you give NitroPDF a go if you want to move away from the overpriced Adobe Professional. As noted above, technical support is extremely responsive with that small business attitude to customer support that the behemoth Adobe lacks.