Trouble Printing PDFs

[Hrothgar]

I'm not sure if this is a Mac issue or an Adobe issue, but I figured I'd ask here because my IT department can't solve the problem. I'm on a 2021, 14" MacBookPro, Apple M1 Pro, Sequoia 15.6.1. A few months back, it stopped printing full versions of large pdfs. If I send a 2-3 page pdf to my printer (HP Laster Jet Pro MFP M428fdw), it prints fine. If I send a large, say, 30 page pdf, it will print one or two pages and then stop. I noticed that when it prepares the doc for printing, the Print Center dialogue reports "Printing, [my name], Waiting for job to complete." It just stops after 2 or three pages. However, if I go into advanced on the print dialog and switch to "Print as Image", it will print the entire document. When it prepares for printing, the Print Center dialogue will show the number of pages being printed. However, there are other issues with printing as an image, so it's not a great work-around.

Printing Word documents works fine.

Any ideas why this is happening? I've searched through Adobe's site and googled, and haven't found anything on this issue.

 

[M4th]

What I'm wondering is try not using Adobe (I'm assuming Acrobat) to print the pdf document?

Maybe Preview or even an internet browser could open the pdf, and then try printing from that.

It may not make a difference, just wondering.

 

[gilby101]

How was the large document created? What app on what OS? What app are you using to print it?

Also try printing to a PDF (and then opening in Preview) or Printing to Preview. Does that include the whole document?

 

[Bwian]

I'm not sure if this is a Mac issue or an Adobe issue, but I figured I'd ask here because my IT department can't solve the problem. I'm on a 2021, 14" MacBookPro, Apple M1 Pro, Sequoia 15.6.1. A few months back, it stopped printing full versions of large pdfs. If I send a 2-3 page pdf to my printer (HP Laster Jet Pro MFP M428fdw), it prints fine. If I send a large, say, 30 page pdf, it will print one or two pages and then stop. I noticed that when it prepares the doc for printing, the Print Center dialogue reports "Printing, [my name], Waiting for job to complete." It just stops after 2 or three pages. However, if I go into advanced on the print dialog and switch to "Print as Image", it will print the entire document. When it prepares for printing, the Print Center dialogue will show the number of pages being printed. However, there are other issues with printing as an image, so it's not a great work-around.

Printing Word documents works fine.

Any ideas why this is happening? I've searched through Adobe's site and googled, and haven't found anything on this issue.

Well Hrothgar, you got further than me. It would be so nice to dump my uncooperative MacBook and use only an iPad. Printing is the hurdle. So far I’ve only managed to print screenshots. Does anybody know a source of accurate instruction on how to print documents or Avery labels using an iPad?

 

[wonderings]

Is it only with that one printer? Are you able to test on another printer? Looking at the printer you listed I can't see why it could not handle a 30 page pdf, though content of the PDF could matter. If there is a lot of technical drawings in it those things can bog down even a fast computer. If you were to let the MacBook sit over night trying to print, when you come in in the morning would it have eventually printed the entire document? Basically wondering if it is just processing the PDF incredibly slow.

 

[ABuVA]

Is it only with that one printer? Are you able to test on another printer? Looking at the printer you listed I can't see why it could not handle a 30 page pdf, though content of the PDF could matter. If there is a lot of technical drawings in it those things can bog down even a fast computer. If you were to let the MacBook sit over night trying to print, when you come in in the morning would it have eventually printed the entire document? Basically wondering if it is just processing the PDF incredibly slow.

I use PDF Squeezer to compress the PDF then print it either from MAC or iPad using Preview and have not encountered any issues. I do not use Adobe.

 

[benwiggy]

However, if I go into advanced on the print dialog and switch to "Print as Image", it will print the entire document.

That suggests a problem 'parsing' the PDF data. It could be a problem with the printer itself. It's likely that macOS is actually sending PostScript to the printer, rather than the PDF natively. (It can be setup that way, but it's not the default.) HP does its own PostScript emulation, which is pretty good, but can choke on things.

Using "Print as Image" means the image is rastered on the computer first.

The printer seems fairly capable. Is it any large PDF, or are they all produced from the same software? What seems to be the threshold?

I use PDF Squeezer to compress the PDF

Compression usually just reduces bitmap images, either in a lossy, or lossless way. It won't change PDF vector data streams.

 

[hibavelmet123]

This sounds more like a PDF rendering/processing issue than a printer hardware problem, especially since:

• Word documents print normally.
• Small PDFs print normally.
• Large PDFs stop after 1–3 pages.
• "Print as Image" allows the entire PDF to print successfully.

When "Print as Image" works, it usually indicates that the printer or print driver is struggling with how Acrobat is sending the PDF data (fonts, transparency, vector graphics, layers, or complex objects), rather than with the actual print job size.

A few things I'd try:

1. Update both Adobe Acrobat and the HP printer firmware to the latest versions.
2. Remove and re-add the printer in macOS, preferably using the latest HP driver instead of AirPrint (or vice versa if you're currently using the HP driver).
3. Test printing the same PDF from Preview instead of Acrobat. If Preview prints correctly, that points strongly toward an Acrobat-related issue.
4. In Acrobat's Print dialog, try disabling "Choose paper source by PDF page size" and any advanced graphics options.
5. Save the PDF as an optimized or reduced-size PDF, then test printing again.
6. Print the PDF in smaller page ranges (e.g., 1–10, 11–20, etc.) to see whether a specific page is causing the spooler to hang.

Since the problem started only a few months ago, I'd also look at whether it coincided with a macOS Sequoia update, an Acrobat update, or a printer firmware update. The fact that Print Center shows "Waiting for job to complete" suggests the print pipeline is stalling after the first few pages rather than the printer running out of memory or losing connection.

I've seen similar issues with large PDF jobs over AirPrint/Wi-Fi that disappeared when using a direct connection or a different printer driver.

That response acknowledges the symptoms and guides the user toward the most likely causes: Acrobat rendering, printer driver conflicts, AirPrint vs HP drivers, or a macOS print pipeline issue.