Can no longer print PDFs from Adobe Acrobat but from Preview it works

[matsan]

Lately I've been having issues printing to our HP LJ M281fwd from Adobe Acrobat Pro (latest version from Creative Cloud 2024.002.21005 - Continuous Release) on Sonoma 14.6.1. Have tried many different files from different places but printing never completes and the Mac's printer ends up as paused and "in use".
Same files prints just fine from the Preview.app.
Have tried resetting the printer subsystem on the mac, checked firmware of the printer (latest) and connected both Mac and printer using Ethernet but still same failure in Adobe Acrobat.

Anyone have similar experiences?

 

[diego.caraballo]

Lately I've been having issues printing to our HP LJ M281fwd from Adobe Acrobat Pro (latest version from Creative Cloud 2024.002.21005 - Continuous Release) on Sonoma 14.6.1. Have tried many different files from different places but printing never completes and the Mac's printer ends up as paused and "in use".
Same files prints just fine from the Preview.app.
Have tried resetting the printer subsystem on the mac, checked firmware of the printer (latest) and connected both Mac and printer using Ethernet but still same failure in Adobe Acrobat.

Anyone have similar experiences?

It's a know issue unfortunately.
You could try this:

 

[matsan]

Wow - not resolved in a year.... sad!

 

[matsan]

It's a know issue unfortunately.
You could try this:
View attachment 2414189

Also makes sense - I just updated to Sonoma about a month ago.

 

[wonderings]

I print from Acrobat DC no problem in Sonoma. I use the old view though, not sure if that is purely cosmetic or if there are other things that are different when switching back to the old view.

 

[matsan]

I print from Acrobat DC no problem in Sonoma. I use the old view though, not sure if that is purely cosmetic or if there are other things that are different when switching back to the old view.

Thanks - tried it and the printing definitely behaves differently - the print job simply disappears and does not lock the printer as "in use", but still doesn't printing anything (unless "print as image" is enabled).

 

[MacGizmo]

I'm going to hijack this thread for just a moment to say that Adobe Acrobat is by far and away the single biggest ****-show in the history of software. Even Flash wasn't as sluggish, buggy, and functionally crippled as Acrobat.

I now return you to your topic of discussion, for which I'm sorry to say I have no solution. Have you tried completely uninstalling Acrobat and re-installing (Using the Acrobat Uninstaller app in your Applications/Acrobat DC folder)?

 

[matsan]

Have you tried completely uninstalling Acrobat and re-installing (Using the Acrobat Uninstaller app in your Applications/Acrobat DC folder)?

It's a fresh install from when I moved to Sonoma on a new computer (~a month ago), but I can give it a try.

 

[wonderings]

can you post a screen shot of your print dialogue window in Acrobat and in Preview where it print fines?

 

[matsan]

can you post a screen shot of your print dialogue window in Acrobat and in Preview where it print fines?

Adobe Acrobat Pro:

Preview:

 

[wonderings]

If you look at the bottom there is a. "Printer..." When you click on that another dialogue window opens. At the top, is the right printer selected?

 

[matsan]

If you look at the bottom there is a. "Printer..." When you click on that another dialogue window opens. At the top, is the right printer selected? View attachment 2415198

Yes it is.

 

[wonderings]

Do other files print from Acrobat? Or nothing you open in Acrobat and try and print goes through?

 

[matsan]

Do other files print from Acrobat? Or nothing you open in Acrobat and try and print goes through?

Not a single file is possible to print through Acrobat lately - all print fine from Preview.
Not even an empty page saved as PDF from Word prints.

 

[wonderings]

Not a single file is possible to print through Acrobat lately - all print fine from Preview.
Not even an empty page saved as PDF from Word prints.

very bizarre. Can't think of much more you could do as you seem to have done it all. There really should be no issue if you are selecting the same printer that you are selecting in Preview. When you print, the printer should come up in your dock, and that is the same as what comes up in preview as well? Is there possible a different printer selected then what is selected in preview?

 

[matsan]

Yes, correct printer comes up but stalls on every print from Acrobat, requiring some operations to get working again.

 

[MacGizmo]

Have you tried deleting the printer in question from the list in System Settings and re-adding it? Not sure why that would make a difference ONLY in Acrobat, but it's a quick thing to try.

 

[wonderings]

Yes, correct printer comes up but stalls on every print from Acrobat, requiring some operations to get working again.

Is Preview printing to the same que? Or to the one above that is green?

 

[matsan]

Have you tried deleting the printer in question from the list in System Settings and re-adding it? Not sure why that would make a difference ONLY in Acrobat, but it's a quick thing to try.

They are two different printers, named "skrivare-companyname".
I have reset the printing system multiple times, tried finding updated drivers from HP, but all in vain.

 

[bzgnyc2]

They are two different printers, named "skrivare-companyname".
I have reset the printing system multiple times, tried finding updated drivers from HP, but all in vain.

Long shot here but are you using HP's PostScript driver/mode for that printer? I vaguely remember some issue some years ago where Adobe Acrobat printed some documents more reliably to a PCL printer than a PostScript printer even though you would expect it to be the opposite. It was like Acrobat tried to take advantage of the PostScript capabilities of the printer and failed while it assumed less about the PCL printer and it "just worked". As such you might see if there is a PCL mode and/or a generic PCL driver you can use (at least for testing).

Another issue I vaguely remember with a family member's HP printer (a B&W "Pro"sumer all-in-one) was that the Printer Job Language commands were interfering with each other. So the printer could print one document right but then become unresponsible after that because it left the device in an inconsistent state. Fixing may require debugging the various printer control scripts and preambles...

One way to isolate the issue is to take documents that don't print through the normal Apple print system and then try uploading the associated PDF and/or PostScript files directly to the printer via its web interface. That might get you a better sense of who is messing things up.

Though I used to consider HP and Adobe the standards in their relevant areas, I've since moved on as I found their quality "inconsistent". As such hope the above helps as I no longer have direct access to any of their products...

 

[matsan]

Long shot here but are you using HP's PostScript driver/mode for that printer? I vaguely remember some issue some years ago where Adobe Acrobat printed some documents more reliably to a PCL printer than a PostScript printer even though you would expect it to be the opposite. It was like Acrobat tried to take advantage of the PostScript capabilities of the printer and failed while it assumed less about the PCL printer and it "just worked". As such you might see if there is a PCL mode and/or a generic PCL driver you can use (at least for testing).

Another issue I vaguely remember with a family member's HP printer (a B&W "Pro"sumer all-in-one) was that the Printer Job Language commands were interfering with each other. So the printer could print one document right but then become unresponsible after that because it left the device in an inconsistent state. Fixing may require debugging the various printer control scripts and preambles...

One way to isolate the issue is to take documents that don't print through the normal Apple print system and then try uploading the associated PDF and/or PostScript files directly to the printer via its web interface. That might get you a better sense of who is messing things up.

Though I used to consider HP and Adobe the standards in their relevant areas, I've since moved on as I found their quality "inconsistent". As such hope the above helps as I no longer have direct access to any of their products...

Thanks for your reply and led me to further experiment.
Setting up a new printer on the Mac as a "Generic PCL Laser Printer" Adobe actually prints without any issues!
BUT - I cannot enable colour printing, all is B&W (the generic driver picked up the duplexer but not color... go figure!)
So, being that it's the same macOS, Acrobat and Printer - it seem like there is something in the HP Driver that doesn't react well with Acrobat.

 

[bzgnyc2]

Thanks for your reply and led me to further experiment.
Setting up a new printer on the Mac as a "Generic PCL Laser Printer" Adobe actually prints without any issues!
BUT - I cannot enable colour printing, all is B&W (the generic driver picked up the duplexer but not color... go figure!)
So, being that it's the same macOS, Acrobat and Printer - it seem like there is something in the HP Driver that doesn't react well with Acrobat.

Thanks for sharing that interesting data point. Yes still unclear to me in this case if Acrobat is generating PostScript that doesn't work with that printer/driver or that driver doesn't work well with Adobe. Normally I would just blame the driver but Adobe Acrobat still seems to have a special PostScript printer mode and so may be bypassing the printer driver for some functionality. Or it may be generating perfectly fine PostScript that just happens to confuse HP's printer driver. To resolve, I would try exporting PostScript from Acrobat and then sending to the printer directly (e.g. via printer's web interface)

In the meantime, workarounds include:

• Live with B&W printing...
• Just always print PDF from Preview
• Always Print as Image from Adobe Acrobat
• Modify the Generic PCL Laser Printer driver to recognize your printer's color capability but that would get fairly technical and not something I could advise on how to do remotely
• See if there are any PostScript print options in Adobe Acrobat Pro that workaround this

For the last approach, I believe Acrobat Pro provides extra/advanced PostScript print options when a PostScript printer is selected. You might try other settings for "Print Method" or "Language" and see if that works better. Or wouldn't hurt to try tweaking Acrobat's other various Send For/Emit options. If I understood the conflict better I could provide more specific suggestions on which ones to start with...

You could also try contacting Adobe since you do have Pro and HP is a pretty mainstream printer. I suspect they will just send you back to Print as Image even if suboptimal and/or blame HP for using a non-Adobe PostScript interpreter but might be worth a shot if you can stomach their support line.

 

[matsan]

Unfortunately we are a non-profit volunteer organisation and don't have time nor flexibility for problems like this. I was trail-blazing the path to Sonoma (we always upgrade on the last stretch of a macOS version, right before the next version comes out, in this case we blanned Ventura -> Sonoma before Sequoia is released) I will recommend our graphical designers using Adobe CS to stay on Ventura (Adobe supports current and two previous releases of macOS and Apple seems to be patching critical issues in surprisingly old versions of macOS).

We will re-evaluate this decision around Christmas when the fall's activities are completed and by that time I may have jumped to Sequoia for testing and Adobe or Apple have solved this issue. Getting professional designers that live and breath Adobe's applications and telling them to use work-arounds involving scary things like "Print as Image".... brrr....

 

[bzgnyc2]

Unfortunately we are a non-profit volunteer organisation and don't have time nor flexibility for problems like this. I was trail-blazing the path to Sonoma (we always upgrade on the last stretch of a macOS version, right before the next version comes out, in this case we blanned Ventura -> Sonoma before Sequoia is released) I will recommend our graphical designers using Adobe CS to stay on Ventura (Adobe supports current and two previous releases of macOS and Apple seems to be patching critical issues in surprisingly old versions of macOS).

We will re-evaluate this decision around Christmas when the fall's activities are completed and by that time I may have jumped to Sequoia for testing and Adobe or Apple have solved this issue. Getting professional designers that live and breath Adobe's applications and telling them to use work-arounds involving scary things like "Print as Image".... brrr....

Certainly appreciate that and resolving these things can be giant time sucks. If everything is working correctly with the latest Acrobat and HP drivers under Ventura but not Sonoma, the one difference between the two related to PostScript that I know about was Apple's removal of PostScript:

PostScript hits the end of the road in macOS Sonoma

PostScript, the venerable page description language dating back to Macs in the '80s, has finally hit the end of the road in macOS Sonoma.

appleinsider.com

At this point I thought that mainly impacted (the very few) applications that use Display PostScript and a few other relatively esoteric utilities like "pstopdf". However, it could be that even the latest Adobe Acrobat and/or HP drivers were using Mac's now excised PostScript API/framework/etc and break in some circumstances under Sonoma now that such has been removed.

If that is the underlying issue, I wouldn't expect Apple to restore/fix but presumably Adobe and/or HP will eventually adapt their software to work reliably with a PDF-centric print system.

 

[matsan]

regarding postscript, we thought so as well and made sure not to use any pure postscript fonts (Suitecase started warning about these fonts a year ago) so they have been removed from our documents. However, Acrobat doesn’t print anything currently.