Acrobat Distiller: Keeps a log? Help

NexusSix

I spent a good 12 hours last Thursday putting together my agency's annual report--lots of effort and hard work, and my agency needs it printed in time for our Annual Board meeting on May 24. After I finished the annual report in Microsoft Publisher at 8:30 p.m., I ran the Acrobat Distiller print. The PDF came out nice and I had our techs burn it to a disc for me along with all of the graphics, text, etc. Dropped the CD off at the printers the next afternoon.

Today the printer called and asked if I could make a couple of minor revisions to the original Publisher file, and FTP a new PDF with said changes. I don't know what the fuck happened, but the final draft of the Publisher file is gone--I've ran every possible search I can think of and had our network guys look through backup tapes and try to restore a couple of files. I've looked exhaustively in multiple files and folders, and all I have is the very first draft of the Publisher file, which looks like complete shit and is no where close to looking like the finished PDF.

So, my question is this:

I may have saved the file I'm looking for under a different name or in a different folder that I can't remember. Does Acrobat have some kind of log function where you're able to see the name/location of the original source file--in this case, the final draft of the Publisher file--that was printed to Distiller to create the PDF document? This is pretty much the last idea I have for trying to avoid recreating the Publisher file from scratch (I'm guessing that would at least be 6 to 8 hours of work, and I'm already buried in other stuff). The PDF of the report looks good and the printing company said they would be able to use it, but it might be a bit off when they cut the pages. But I want it in Publisher format anyway in case we want to use it again as a template or if my CEO and director want to make some changes to it.

Any suggestions or ideas on this... I'll send you a friggin' case of Franziskaner Hefe-Weisse or some Chimay.

Ponge

Depending on how minor the changes are, you could always open the particular PDF pages in photoshop or GIMP? Fudge the necessary changes and resave?

Creepy

Kind of low tech but if you remember when you were working on the file then just do a search for that day, all files modified, include hidden, system, etc. Sort list by modified time and look down that list for anything that might be a temp copy of your document. Has saved me before a few times.

NexusSix

Thanks for the feedback. Since we're a nonprofit, we're pretty low-tech with the publishing/printing apps, so we don't have photoshop or anything like that--it's all MS stuff like Publisher and MS Picture Manager. I'll give the file search one more shot and see if I can find anything else.

I appreciate the input. 8-)

Ponge

Again i'm not sure if it'll really help your situation, but GIMP is freeware (last time I checked). Although I'm not positive it can open PDF's.