NT - Printing Issue

[Dave T]

Anyone having difficulty printing PDF files?  Just recently my Brother printer stopped printing them.  I have several clients that send me their docs that way and when I go to print them nothing happens. As noted, this is just recent, never had problems in the past.

Not sure if it is a printer driver issue or something to do with Adobe?

Any input would be appreciated.

Thank you.

[Lee B]

Have you tried printed one of your own pdfs as a crosscheck?

[Dave T]

Yes, I save all prepared returns to pdf and these won't print out either.

[Lee B]

Printer drivers do get corrupted from time to time.

If you're moderately comfortable with tech stuff, go to the Brothers website and download and install the current printer driver.

If not, uninstall your printer then reinstall letting Windows find and install the driver.

The second approach will not install any printer management software from Brothers.

[Pacun]

locate a pdf file, right click, properties and select acrobat.

Let me know if it works. 

[kathyc2]

Have you checked that the default printer didn't get changed in Adobe?  

 

[Lee B]

15 hours ago, cbslee said:

 

I think Pacun & kathyc2 posts are pointing in the right direction.

Do you have non Adobe desktop pdf software?

Do you have a browser app or extension for editing pdfs ?

 

 

[Dave T]

I'll try these suggestions and let you know.

Thanks for all the input.

[mircpa]

I too had printing problem with K1's. I shut down software & restarted. Now I am able to print to printer or PDF.

[Dave T]

Brother is the default printer and I can create PDF files from ATX but still can't print them.

Pacun, I tried your suggestion but when I right click on the file I don't see a Properties option.

I will try first to uninstall the printer and then try to download drivers if uninstall doesn't work.

Thank you

[Abby Normal]

PDFs can have restrictions placed on the that include stopping people from editing them or even printing them. So check your PDF printer preferences and printer properties to see if that's happening. If you have a PDF editor program, you should be able to see, and sometimes remove, any security settings. You might need a password to remove some security settings.

But my first question is why are you printing PDFs received from your clients. We love it when the clients provides PDFs, assuming they were downloaded or scanned properly, because we only work from PDFs when entering data for tax returns. Love being able to zoom in to make the tiny numbers more readable. And we use the typewriter feature in Foxit PDF reader to make notes on the client docs, including pasting calculator tapes into the PDFs.

Finally when you say you 'can't print them,' what exactly happens? What do you see on your screen? Does it look like it's printing but nothing prints? Do you get an error message? What printer is showing in the print dialog?

Also, uninstall any printer software that came with your printer. I would disconnect the printer from your computer. Then delete the printer in Control Panel, Devices and Printers. Then reboot your computer. Then connect the printer and let windows detect and install it. You probably won't see anything happening, but if you go back into Devices and Printers, your printer should be there. And windows will install the latest driver automatically.

 

[Catherine]

21 hours ago, cbslee said:

go to the Brothers website and download and install the current printer driver

CCleaner and other utilities will check your drivers and install updates as needed, if you don't want to do it yourself.

[Lee B]

43 minutes ago, Catherine said:

CCleaner and other utilities will check your drivers and install updates as needed, if you don't want to do it yourself.

I use the free version. I checked and found it's a new feature of CCleaner Pro which you can try for 14 days for free.

[Pacun]

 

 

Place a pdf file on your desktop, make sure it is not a shortcut and then right click it, properties and select Acrobat reader.  My picture was cut, the very last choice should be "properties".

I am almost sure that edge is the program selected as the default program to open pdf files on your computer and that's why you are having issues. 

You could also select acrobat reader for .pdf files but that's more elaborate.

[Abby Normal]

14 hours ago, Catherine said:

CCleaner and other utilities will check your drivers and install updates as needed, if you don't want to do it yourself.

There's no need. Windows does this for you automatically. Or you can go into Device Manager and ask windows to check for a newer driver or install one that you downloaded.

[Dave T]

Will try these suggestions today.

After a trip to Urgent Care for my wife and then a late night trip to airport to pick up my son from a very delayed flight from Dallas, didn't get much chance to work on this yesterday.

Thanks for all the helpful ideas.

[Lee B]

On 2/27/2022 at 2:41 PM, Catherine said:

CCleaner and other utilities will check your drivers and install updates as needed, if you don't want to do it yourself.

Catherine, thanks for this tip. If I had done this manually I would have only updated my 2 printer drivers.

CCleaner Pro updated a total of 7 different drivers.

[Catherine]

You are very welcome. I frankly trust CCleaner to find the right drivers more than Windows.