How to Troubleshoot PDF Printing Issues

PDF (Portable Document Format) is one of the most popular document format designed to present documents which includes images and text formatting. It is independent of the hardware, software, platform, and the operating system. Given the right tools, any device can open PDF files with ease.

Lately, there has been a lot of problems with PDF files where they are unable to get printed. This scenario is mostly seen in Adobe PDF software in Windows 10. This occurs mainly because there are misconfigurations in your software and some settings might be set incorrectly.

How to Fix PDF Printing Issues

Users have reported that they cannot print PDF files opened in Adobe PDF software but can print all other document formats from everywhere else. Apart from the software, there are also other modules from where the PDF fails to print for example Edge, Email, File viewers etc. This guide aims to target all these situations and get you printing in no time.

Check your printer

Before we take a look at problems in the software, you should make absolutely sure that your printer is working as expected from other platforms or applications. You should connect your printer properly, tailor some other document in Word etc, and print a test page. Once your printer is in an operational state, move on to the solutions.

In case you are having problems with your printer, you can check out our guides on printer troubleshooting.

Solution 1: Changing PDF preference and printing as Image

According to users, they fixed the issue of the PDF not printing by changing the default application using Settings in Windows 10 for .pdf extension files. There seem to be some conflicts with printing and the default application for PDF files. Once we change this, we will use the advanced options try printing the PDF file as an image.

1. Press Windows + S, type “settings” in the dialogue box and open the application. Once in settings, navigate to Apps and then Default apps.
2. Once in Default apps, click on Choose default apps by file type.

3. Now make sure that for the file type ‘.pdf’, Adobe is selected. Save changes and exit.

4. After restarting your computer, open the PDF file again in Adobe, click on File and then Print.
5. Click on Advanced and check the box Print as image.

6. After making sure that the correct printer is selected, click OK to continue printing.

Solution 2: Changing document settings

Another thing to try if printing as an image doesn’t work is changing the document’s settings. We will change the PDF/A mode to never and disable the protected mode. There are several reports that these options caused problems when printing the document and disabling them fixed the issue.

1. Open the document in Adobe Acrobat and click on View > Preferences.

2. Click on Documents using the left navigation pane and set the PDF/A View Mode to Never.

3. Click on Security (Enhanced) using the left navigation pane and uncheck the option Enable Protected Mode at startup. If prompted with a warning, press Yes.

4. Restart your computer and try printing the document again using Adobe.

Solution 3: Using a browser to print

If Adobe is causing issues and still not printing the PDF file, you can try printing the document using your browser. Browsers have inbuilt modules to view PDF files and even print them using your printer. Of course, you need to be sure that your printer is working perfectly.

1. Navigate to the PDF file. Right-click it and select Open with and select your browser (Chrome etc.).

2. Open the settings and click on Print from the drop-down.

3. Select the correct print options from the preceding window and print your document.

Solution 4: Reinstalling Adobe Acrobat

If the solutions above don’t work for you, you try reinstalling Adobe Acrobat software on your computer. It is possible that the installation is either corrupt or there are conflicts with the software. We will make sure that we remove all the leftover files before commencing with the fresh installation. Do note that you might lose your saved licenses in the software so make sure that you have them written down somewhere so you can enter again.

1. Download and use the Adobe Reader and Acrobat Cleaner tool. This will remove the software from your computer and completely remove temporary settings and files which get left over.

2. Now navigate to the official website of Acrobat and download the software again and install it. After installation, try printing and see if the problem is fixed.

Note: This issue has also been officially noticed by Adobe and download the patch to fix the issue.