PDFs that print all-black

Topic

New Reply

This is a phenomenon I don’t understand. I looked at the Esquire article about Gingrich
at http://www.esquire.com/print-this/newt-gingrich-0910?page=all , and I used the Firefox addon
“printpdf” to generate a pdf file. (Note: in printpdf’s options, the only one checked is “print background colors”)
When I view the pdf in Foxit, it looks normal. But if I print, the pages wind up all black, except for the pictures.
If I view in Sumatra, it actually appears all black, before I even print. If I use Nitro, everything works
just fine, as I would have expected. It seems to me I’ve encountered this business before, of printing producing
all-black pages. Anyone have a simple explanation or comments?
(Edit: Note: The “print background colors” seems to have nothing to do with it. Same result with it unchecked.)

Reply | Quote

Replies

My PDF’s were solid black in areas. When printing, I noticed a box toward the bottom that said: Print color as black. This box had been checked. I unchecked it. Upon doing so, in testing a few PDF’s which had been coming out all blackened, I get clear prints.

I hope this helps!

Barbarah

Reply | Quote

Thanks, BarbarahC. This should be useful to some folks. Unfortunately, nothing like that works for me.
I have a Brother (black and white) laser printer. I can choose between print document and “print document and annotations” (or just annotations).
I can also choose “print as grayscale” or not, and in “printer properties”/Advanced I can choose “improve gray printing” or not,
and “use printer halftone” vs “use system halftone”, but none of those works. And, as I mentioned, if I use
the nitro pdf reader, then I don’t have any problems at all. I hope others shed some more light on the phenomenon,
beyond what you and I know so far.

Reply | Quote

Thanks, BarbarahC. This should be useful to some folks. Unfortunately, nothing like that works for me.
I have a Brother (black and white) laser printer. I can choose between print document and “print document and annotations” (or just annotations).
I can also choose “print as grayscale” or not, and in “printer properties”/Advanced I can choose “improve gray printing” or not,
and “use printer halftone” vs “use system halftone”, but none of those works. And, as I mentioned, if I use
the nitro pdf reader, then I don’t have any problems at all. I hope others shed some more light on the phenomenon,
beyond what you and I know so far.

I wonder how you are expecting to get colour when you are using a Black & White Laser printer?

Reply | Quote

I wonder how you are expecting to get colour when you are using a Black & White Laser printer?

In answer, I’m not expecting to get colors. I simply left things at their defaults, and,
as I wrote, when I unchecked that it made absolutely no difference.
I’m only experimenting with that setting on the offchance that something matters, and maybe black is an “interpretation” of some innocuous color.
Clearly, I was expecting white to show up as white and not as black, when printed, and I was wrong.
So, I was hoping to stumble upon the explanation.

Reply | Quote

Hi there,

Possibly a bit late to the party, but in case nobody’s provided the answer, here’s a potential thing to look at:

I’ve seen this behaviour previously and the thing that allowed for it to print properly was a setting to “print as image” to make it print correctly.
I can’t remember if we had to check or uncheck the option though, so try both ways (or the way you haven’t so far)

Hope this helps.
Ttyl, Gary

Reply | Quote

Hi there,

Possibly a bit late to the party, but in case nobody’s provided the answer, here’s a potential thing to look at:

I’ve seen this behaviour previously and the thing that allowed for it to print properly was a setting to “print as image” to make it print correctly.
I can’t remember if we had to check or uncheck the option though, so try both ways (or the way you haven’t so far)

Hope this helps.
Ttyl, Gary

Gary, thanks for posting. It would be nice to see more posts here.
I just checked, and, for what it’s worth,
I do not have any “print as image” option.

Reply | Quote

This has happened to me a few times, and I couldn’t find anything that fixed it, however the suggestion to ‘print as image’ worked a treat! Thanks very much

Reply | Quote

Try the following two steps:

1. Print to PDF.

2. Now try to print the new PDF that you generated in step 1.

Sometimes printing a PDF file to PDF will clean up some errors in it.

Group "L" (Linux Mint)
with Windows 10 running in a remote session on my file server

Reply | Quote

Try the following two steps:

1. Print to PDF.

2. Now try to print the new PDF that you generated in step 1.

Sometimes printing a PDF file to PDF will clean up some errors in it.

This method solved my problem.

Reply | Quote

This issue had been bothering me for some time. Finally set down today and bashed my head against the computer until I got it figured out. Here is what worked for me. (btw, this is on windows 7)

Open the print dialog
Click on Properties
Go to the Advanced Tab
Under Document Properties make sure Print Optimizations is disabled.

Then print and you should get pictures instead of black boxes from your pdf

Reply | Quote

This issue had been bothering me for some time. Finally set down today and bashed my head against the computer until I got it figured out. Here is what worked for me. (btw, this is on windows 7)

Open the print dialog
Click on Properties
Go to the Advanced Tab
Under Document Properties make sure Print Optimizations is disabled.

Then print and you should get pictures instead of black boxes from your pdf

* This is the fix that worked for me on 3 workstations with the issue. Thanks!

Reply | Quote

“Print as Image” is found under Advanced printer properties. When you click Print, the printer properties screen will appear. There will be an Advanced button. Click it, and you will see the “Print as Image” option on the screen which appears. Check the box by it.

Group "L" (Linux Mint)
with Windows 10 running in a remote session on my file server

Reply | Quote

Question: Which application are you printing from?
Is it Adobe Reader, or Acrobat? As compared to printing what is displayed in your web browser, or some other application.
I am unable to infer from the question which.
I suggest with any PDF troubles, to eliminate unnecessary’s. In particular, if the PDF is linked in a web page, to download the PDF to your desktop first, then close your browser. Now open Adobe Reader, or Acrobat. and use Reader or Acrobat to open the PDF.
To me, find the simplest situation when troubleshooting. PDFs do not require the web for display or printing.
In my experience, most times the PDF is fine. And the difficulties are “operational”.
I liken this this to viewing a Word document outside of Word. MS Office is so omnipresent, many don’t have problems. But if I had a problem displaying or printing a Word file, because I don’t have Word on this machine, I would seek out a machine with Word, or an authentic Microsoft Word viewer.
Last but not least, keep in mind the whole reason for PDF, is printing with integrity everywhere. Unlike HTML, whose priority is display everywhere.

As to printing all black, I don’t remember ever suffering that. Never had to “deal with that”.

Reply | Quote

I assumed incorrectly.
I just visited the link. I tried the [Print], and selected Acrobat XI as printer.
PDF created. Opened in Adobe Reader XI. Printed a page using Reader with “Print in grayscale …” selected. Works.
I had incorrectly assumed the PDF to be printed was a download. Appears this is not the case.
Apologies.
At this point, I suspect the Firefox add-on. BTW, I am loyal to Mozilla. I have two T-shirts, donate, and also recommend Thunderbird for RSS.

Reply | Quote