This issue when printing some PDF documents from within Adobe Reader has been one of the most vexing computer problems I’ve experienced in a while. I think I might have just figured out how to solve it, so I’m posting a description of the problem, as well as what I believe is a solution (or at least a work-around).
Some PDF documents I try to print from within Adobe Reader will have all of their text print as garbage (”greeked” text). From the Google searches I’ve done, it seems that others have reported that this problem is not always reproducible, and that no single type of printer seems to be involved. In my experience, it is reproducible. The common thread seems to be (from what I’ve read) that all users having this problem are running Windows XP with Service Pack 2 installed.
The problematic PDFs will look just fine when you view them on your computer, but when they print, only the graphics will print correctly. All of the printed text looks like it’s just random characters of “gobbledygook”. Upon closer inspection, you can see that the characters are all off by one position in the alphabet (actually, off by one ASCII character, since symbols and numbers are also off by one). ie: “A” prints as “B”, “”e” prints as “f”, and a zero prints as “1″. Even when I select “print preview” in the print options for my Hewlett-Packard printer, the documents show garbage text in the on-screen print preview window!.
I am running Windows XP SP2, and have updated Adobe Reader to version 8.1.1, which is the current version. I use Windows Update to keep XP up to date with patches. I’ll say that I first noticed this problem with some PDFs about a year ago, but I can’t tell you what version of Adobe Reader I first noticed it with. I’m not even sure this is an Adobe Reader issue. It might be a Windows or a printer driver issue also. The latest problems occured when printing a PDF that was being viewed with Adobe Reader within my Firefox v 2.0.0.11 browser, but it has occured in earlier versions of Firefox, and I believe in Internet Explorer as well.
I’ve experienced this problem when printing to an HP PSC1210 all-in-one inkjet printer, and an HP Photosmart 7260 inkjet printer.
Today, after reprinting the same PDF several times, and getting garbage out each time, I clicked “print”, and started looking around in the print window that opens for my HP 7260 printer. When I print PDFs, I get an “Advanced” button in the bottom left corner of the print window that I can click on. There are a bunch of “greyed-out” postscript options in this window, but there is also a check box that says “Print as image”. I decided to check this box and click “OK”, which closes the advanced printing options window, then I clicked “OK” to send the PDF to the printer. I think doing this causes the entire document to be sent to the printer as “raster graphics”, rather than as PCL containing a mix of graphics and ASCII text.
Voila! The PDF printed correctly. I’m not certain that checking the “Print as image” option was the reason, but it’s worth trying if you are having this problem, and you have this option in your print setup.
If this solution works for you, please post the details as a comment to this article.
21 Comments
July 7, 2009 at .
Just hit the same problem at work, our receptionist was baffled (as were we all). Many thanks for your insight and workaround. 21st century and we can’t print reliably!
Spacing seems to be correct for the character required, not actually printed, hence it looks a bit weird. Our name was printed as SPMMB (with the MM too close) instead of ROLLA.
- Rolla, Ltd. – (view photo)
London, England
March 14, 2009 at .
Thank you for posting this.
I have the same problem (using Firefox and Adobe Reader) intermittently. I think it has to do with the version of Adobe Reader the PDF was created with vs. the version you are using to print it.
Unfortunately, the Advanced Option of Print as Image gives me the same Gobbledy Gook — so I still don’t have a solution. I’ve searched Adobe Reader Support. I can’t believe this isn’t addressed there- but it doesn’t seem to be.
- Rochester, Minnesota
March 5, 2009 at .
Thanks a million. It worked like a charm.
Our admin lady says you rock.
- Pretoria, South Africa
January 23, 2009 at .
Dude (I’m assuming you’re a dude), thanks!
In my case I had to do about the same thing:
1. File -> Print -> Properties…
2. Go to the Advanced tab -> open the Image Options tree
3. Change the field PostScript Pass-through from Enabled to Disabled
I took a peek at our Printer’s Help files and found that disabling the thing in step 3 essentially means letting the printer driver generate the PostScript file instead of letting the application (in this case Adobe Acrobat) do this.
Our printer is a Xerox WorkCentre Pro 232.
- Paris, France
(IP: Wuppertal, Germany)
January 14, 2009 at .
Thank you so much for such a simple fix… just as an added note this fix worked with PDFXChange Viewer and a Konica Minolta copier/printer.
- Omaha, Nebraska
January 9, 2009 at .
Finally! I have been having my friend print out my pdf’s at her work because mine would print in “greek” language! This worked for me and I am happy!
Thank you very much for explaining step by step how you did it.
Toki
- San Jose, California
December 23, 2008 at .
Unfortunately printing as image did not work for me, all I get is giberish text mixed up with symbols either way.
- The Netherlands
December 9, 2008 at .
Thanks for this article…I’ve never had this problem before but this form wouldnt print anything legible until i read your article.
- Brocade Communications Systems
San Jose, California
November 29, 2008 at .
Fantastic work. I’m running Vista and thought I’d dropped a required font or so. Works beautifully now – Thanks heaps
- Queensland, Australia
November 21, 2008 at .
Worked like a charm for me. I was getting some text as webdings and wingdings. Print as image solved the problem!
- Somersworth, New Hampshire
November 12, 2008 at .
I have been having a similar problem printing from Adobe 7.0… was driving me nuts! Specific documents have messed up text every time! Printing as an image worked!!! Thanks for writing the article.
- Brisbane, Australia
November 3, 2008 at .
You rock! I work for a law firm and we are always having to print forms from state agencies. For some reason DCF forms always print gobbledygook and this method finally fixed it. Thank you so much for posting this!
October 16, 2008 at .
Thank You So Much!!! I work in an office where I use templates viewed by Adobe quite often. This has been bothering me for months! However, thanks to your pertinent information, I’ve finally found a soulution to the “Wing Ding” problem:) I will be sure to inform my collegues of the information that was discovered in this article! Thanks Again!!!
October 7, 2008 at .
I have only ever experienced this problem with Brother Laser Printers, but none the less have not been able to resolve without changing the driver for a post script one. This of course isn’t always practical!
October 1, 2008 at .
Thanks for the suggestion. At one time, my computer using Acrobat 7.0 was the only computer out of 5 that was able to print out a document without the garbled text. In an attempt to print a special document, I was forced to install 9.0 and then I encountered this problem. Printing as an image worked! Thanks again.
September 26, 2008 at .
Tried Foxit instead of Adobe Reader?
September 17, 2008 at .
Printing as image worked, you ROCK!
September 8, 2008 at .
I had same problem even after installing 9.0. I was opening document from desktop and trying to print. I clicked on “print as image” and it worked.
September 7, 2008 at .
I have the same problem, but only with printing out from google documents. Printing a second time fixed the problem, but one in 4 or 5 documents is messed up. Is your letter spacing also based on the actual text? For me, the new letters are spaced based on what they should have been, causing some to spread out, and some to bunch together oddly.
September 2, 2008 at .
It worked for me as well … but only prints out grey scale. I have not been able to find a solution for this problem either. I have the issue of printing PDFs created on Mac on a PC.
August 6, 2008 at .
Hi there
Thank you SO much for posting your article. After waiting on hold with Adobe tech support, I found your article. I had the same problem of garbage text printing, and printing it as an image worked. You rock.
Thanks!