Printing Problems (mostly PDFs)

[Abulia]

I have a home network w/ two Windows XP machines, an eMac, a PowerBook, and my new Power Mac. On the network I also have an HP 4000N laser printer. The printer (as far as I know) is in fine working order and has 128MB of printer memory.

The Windows machines print everything I throw at the printer without any problems. The Macs...not so much.

My main problem is printing PDFs from the Macs. A two-page graphic-lite PDF will stall the printer when I ask for 4 copies. Some PDFs print great, others just choke the printer. I'm really baffled as to what the problem is. I've setup the printer for IP-based printing and can spool jobs, they just take forever or fail with some PDFs. On the other hand, I queue up a 20-page graphic HEAVY PDF and it prints without any problems, albeit a bit slow.

I've tried printing from Preview and Acrobat Professional 6.0.2 but both with the same results. I'm using whatever drivers for the HP that came w/ Panther. I can repeat the problem on any of the three Macs on the network.

If anyone can help me troubleshoot Mac printing issues, I'd appreciate it. (Total Mac newbie.)

 

[neilrobinson]

adobes fault... well kinda

when you send out of acrobat and want 4 copies it sends the file down 4 times... makes sense dont it. it doesn't really help when you have large documents.

dont know about preview, check when i get to work and have a printer.

windows version of acrobat works diffrent.

 

[Mechcozmo]

Preview is better for viewing PDFs. I had that kind of trouble when trying to print a PDF that wanted to open in Adobe. Over a wireless network to the printer, it took forever. In Preview (Open preview and select the file) it worked fine.

 

[Abulia]

Any tests I can do to give you guys some more information on how to fix this? It really does drive me nuts. Print the same document from both Preview and Acrobat?

 

[MisterMe]

adobes fault... well kinda

when you send out of acrobat and want 4 copies it sends the file down 4 times... makes sense dont it. it doesn't really help when you have large documents.

dont know about preview, check when i get to work and have a printer.

windows version of acrobat works diffrent.

I have found that some PDFs produced by amateur Windows-users must be printed using the Print as Image option. It is slow, but the PDF won't print properly otherwise. I have never had a problem with PDFs from professional sources.

 

[emw]

The Windows machines print everything I throw at the printer without any problems. The Macs...not so much.

My main problem is printing PDFs from the Macs. A two-page graphic-lite PDF will stall the printer when I ask for 4 copies. Some PDFs print great, others just choke the printer. I'm really baffled as to what the problem is. I've setup the printer for IP-based printing and can spool jobs, they just take forever or fail with some PDFs. On the other hand, I queue up a 20-page graphic HEAVY PDF and it prints without any problems, albeit a bit slow.

I've tried printing from Preview and Acrobat Professional 6.0.2 but both with the same results. I'm using whatever drivers for the HP that came w/ Panther. I can repeat the problem on any of the three Macs on the network.

A couple of questions:

1. How are the PDF files being created? Are you using Save as PDF or with output options set to PDF in the Print Dialog, or are you printing to PostScript and using Distiller? You may also want to set up the Adobe PDF printer, which uses Distiller in the background to make PDFs for you.

2. When you say PDFs print fine from Windows but not the Mac, are you talking about the same PDF files, or just PDF files in general? If they are the same, then that's one angle, but if they are different, and were created differently, it's more difficult to track down the issue.

3. Someone already commented on Adobe's remarkable inefficiency in printing multiple copies - if you print just one copy of that same PDF file, does it still print slowly?

 

[sherry]

Printing problems (mostly PDFs)

I'm having the same problems printing PDFs from Adobe Acrobat Professional v.6.0. These are downloaded PDFs, not ones I have created. My printer is HP deskjet 6127 and I have the most recent driver.

I'm getting real familiar with the short cut to Force Quit.

 

[MisterMe]

I'm having the same problems printing PDFs from Adobe Acrobat Professional v.6.0. These are downloaded PDFs, not ones I have created. My printer is HP deskjet 6127 and I have the most recent driver.

I'm getting real familiar with the short cut to Force Quit.

In my previous post, I stated that amateur-produced PDF files can give you problems. The fact that you downloaded a file tells us nothing about the source of the file. I would bet dollars to donuts that your printer has nothing to do with your problems. The problem lies in the files that you are trying to print. I gather that your downloaded PDFs are not copies of operation manuals for professional digital camcorders.

 

[hobbes3113]

In my previous post, I stated that amateur-produced PDF files can give you problems. The fact that you downloaded a file tells us nothing about the source of the file. I would bet dollars to donuts that your printer has nothing to do with your problems. The problem lies in the files that you are trying to print. I gather that your downloaded PDFs are not copies of operation manuals for professional digital camcorders.

I am having similar problems with printing some downloaded .pdf files. I can assure you that the files are being downloaded from a reputable source (the American Chemical Society), so please don't say it is a problem with the file. Possibly more interesting is the fact that this only happens (to my knowledge) when I print to an HP Laserjet 4000 TN. The same document prints without issue when I send it to the HP Color Laserjet 4600. In addition, this doesn't happen all the time, sometimes the 4000 prints without a problem. I have ruled out any problems with my computer as my colleagues are having the same difficulty.

Any thoughts? Is this a driver problem (all current drivers have been dl)?


Thanks for the help,

hobbes