Expert: Ken Black - 8/3/2008

Question
I have Acrobat 8 professional, Windows XP Pro, Brother 5250DN printer and an old HP P1000 photosmart printer.  When I print a pdf file it prints all color as dark black, all images as dark black, and all half-toning as dark black (such as a copy watermark).  Some gray-scale gets preserved on the Brother printer.  On my color printer everything comes out black. It does this on both of my printers so I am assuming the problem is a setting in Acrobat.  When I copy the pdf file to a different pc with only Adobe reader 8 (networked to the same two printers), it prints fine to the Brother printer and prints the color ok on the HP Photosmart but the black is poor quality.  

What setting(s) do I need to change?  I didn't have this problem with Adobe Reader 8 ... but then I "upgraded" to Acrobat pro.

Answer
Hi Vaughn,

This may sound strange, but when you select the printer in the print window, does it match the printer type shown there? If it does not and it shows something like "Generic Printer", you may need to remove and then re-add that printer within Windows itself. If printers use the wrong drivers/descriptions from within some applications, Acrobat included, they may not print text and/or graphics properly.

I am not aware of any specific settings other than the Composite color or Composite grayscale print types within Acrobat that would have any effect such as your experience. That is why I am leaning towards the issue relating to how Windows is presenting the printers to Acrobat.

Please let me know how this turns out or if re-adding the printers does not have an effect.

Thanks,

Ken Black
www.bestprintingonline.com