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printing garbled

  • 5 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by dcingram

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When I print to pdf from some websites the main text is garbled. It does not even appear to be a foreign language. I have followed the printer troubleshooting and reset print_printer and I do not have a line beginning with print_ in my prefs.js file. Printing to a real HP laser printer works fine.

When I print to pdf from some websites the main text is garbled. It does not even appear to be a foreign language. I have followed the printer troubleshooting and reset print_printer and I do not have a line beginning with print_ in my prefs.js file. Printing to a real HP laser printer works fine.
Attached screenshots

Chosen solution

I get nice results with the Adobe PDF "printer" from Acrobat Standard XI, so I think it should work for you.

Could you check this setting:

(1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter/Return. Click the button promising to be careful.

(2) In the search box above the list, type or paste adobe and pause while the list is filtered

(3) Double-click the print.printer_Adobe_PDF.print_downloadfonts preference to switch from false to true or true to false and try with that.

Any difference? Not sure what to expect because both true and false work for me on that page.

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All Replies (5)

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The site makes heavy use of downloadable fonts, which need to be embedded in the PDF for it to display properly.

How are you generating the PDF?

If it's a printer driver installed on your system, can you check to make sure it is set to embed fonts?

If you are using a service (submitting the URL to a website to generate the PDF), perhaps you might try a different one.

(Was testing with this URL: http://chronicle.com/article/Supreme-.../236904)

Modified by jscher2000 - Support Volunteer

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Actually... Firefox seems to be embedding the pages as images with my PDF print driver, so in that case, font embedding is not necessary. Perhaps it depends on which PDF print driver you use.

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I am using the print driver from Adobe Professional to generate the pdf. It works fine if I use Chrome or IE to print the document. It is something in Firefox that is corrupting the printing.

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Chosen Solution

I get nice results with the Adobe PDF "printer" from Acrobat Standard XI, so I think it should work for you.

Could you check this setting:

(1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter/Return. Click the button promising to be careful.

(2) In the search box above the list, type or paste adobe and pause while the list is filtered

(3) Double-click the print.printer_Adobe_PDF.print_downloadfonts preference to switch from false to true or true to false and try with that.

Any difference? Not sure what to expect because both true and false work for me on that page.

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I switched print.printer_Adobe_PDF.print_downloadfonts to true and that appears to fix the problem. Thanks