How to Fix Adobe The Document Could Not Be Printed? [6 Ways]
A great many people reported that they received the “Adobe the document could not be printed” error. Why Adobe Acrobat cannot print the PDF document? How to fix the error on Windows? Now, let’s explore the answers together with MiniTool PDF Editor.
Adobe Acrobat Reader is a widely used PDF reader that can open, view, read, edit, print, encrypt, convert PDFs, or do many PDF-related works. Sometimes, however, this program also runs into different issues, such as “This PDF document might not be displayed correctly”, “Save as PDF not working”, “Adobe Acrobat not responding”, and Adobe this document could not be printed.
Here’s a true example from the Adobe community:
For the past couple of days, I have had the message «This document could not be printed» whenever I have tried to print something through Acrobat DC. Does anyone have any quick fixes or ideas? Cheers. https://community.adobe.com/t5/acrobat-discussions/quot-this-document-could-not-be-printed-quot-quot-activate-your-licence-quot-despite-paying-for-a/m-p/12393336
Possible Causes of Adobe Document Could Not Be Printed
What causes the Adobe document could not be printed error? According to a survey, the problem can be triggered by different possible reasons, including corrupted PDF document, outdated printer drivers, loosened printer connection, improper settings, and even the Adobe Acrobat software itself.
How to Fix Adobe The Document Could Not Be Printed
How do I fix the document could not be printed Adobe error? Here we summarize 8 effective troubleshooting methods. Let’s try them in order until the error gets fixed.
# 1. Use an Alternative to Adobe Acrobat
If it’s urgent for you to print the PDF document, we highly recommend you use an Adobe Acrobat alternative – MiniTool PDF Editor. It’s also a professional PDF reader that boasts almost all the basic features of Adobe Acrobat, like “edit, view, create, read, convert, compress, and print PDFs”. Besides, it’s a powerful PDF converter that can convert Word, Excel, PPT, PNG, Text, HTML, EPUB, and markdown to PDF, and vice versa.
# 2. Check the Connection of Your Printer
If the printer cable gets damaged or the connection is loosened, you may encounter Adobe Acrobat the document could not be printer error. Follow the guide below to check that:
Step 1. Unplug the printer cable from the hub and plug it into the USB port of your computer properly.
Step 2. Turn off your printer and turn it on again after 30 seconds.
Step 3. Try printing the document using Adobe and see if it works well.
# 3. Update Your Printer Driver
Sometimes an outdated printer driver can lead to Adobe Acrobat the document could not be printed error too. Here’s how to update the driver.
Step 1. Right-click the Windows Start menu and choose Device Manager.
Step 2. Expand the Printers category, right-click the printer driver, and select Update driver.
Step 3. In the pop-up window, select the Search automatically for drivers option and follow the on-screen instructions to update the driver. Alternatively, you can download the latest version of the printer driver from its manufacturer’s website and install it manually.
# 4. Use the Print as Image Option
As you know, PDF documents often contain some complex fonts that may mess up the printer’s memory, triggering the Adobe this document could not be printed error. Here, you can try printing the PDF file as an image.
Step 1. Open the PDF that you are trying to print, and then hold the Windows + P keys to open the Print window and click on Advanced.
Step 2. Select the checkbox for Print as image and click on OK. Then you can print the document again and see if the Adobe the document could not be printed error disappears.
# 5. Re-create the PDF Document
If the original PDF document gets corrupted, you may encounter the Adobe document could not be printed error. In this case, you can try re-creating the PDF. To do so, open the PDF file in the original program, select File > Print, and change the Save as type to PDF. After that, you can open the new PDF and print it again to check if the error is gone.
# 6. Remove the PDF from the Print Queue
In addition, you can clear all jobs in the print queue. If the document printing gets stuck in the queue, it can trigger the document could not be printed Adobe error. Here’s how to empty the printer queue.
Step 1. Type devices and printers in the search box, then select Devices and Printers from the best match.
Step 2. Double-click on your printer installed and press Open queue.
Step 3. In the pop-up window, click on the Printer at the top menu and select Cancel All Documents.
# 7. Turn off the PDF/A View Mode
Some users reported that the Adobe Acrobat the document could not be printed error can be solved by turning off the PDF/A view mode. To do that, navigate to the Edit tab, select Preferences, click Documents on the Preferences window, then select Never from the View documents in PDF/A mode and click OK to save the change.
# 8. Reinstall Adobe Acrobat
If none of the above methods fix the Adobe the document could not be printed error on Windows, you may consider reinstalling the program. To do so, right-click the Start menu, select App and Features, select Adobe Acrobat, and click on Uninstall. Once uninstalled, you can re-download the latest version of Adobe Acrobat from its official website and install it on your PC.
About The Author
Ariel has been working as a highly professional computer-relevant technology editor at MiniTool for many years. She has a strong passion for researching all knowledge related to the computer’s disk, partition, and Windows OS. Up till now, she has finished thousands of articles covering a broad range of topics and helped lots of users fix various problems. She focuses on the fields of disk management, OS backup, and PDF editing and provides her readers with insightful and informative content.
PDF — Adobe Error «The document could not be printed»
3. Click Advanced at the bottom of the Print dialog box.
4. In the resulting Advanced Print Setup dialog box, select Print As Image and click OK.
Solution 2: Delete the Acrobat preferences folder.
1. Close Acrobat.
2. Choose Start > Run and type %APPDATA%\Adobe\Acrobat\ in the Open text box. Click OK.
3. Right-click either the 6.0 or 7.0 folder and choose Delete.
4. Start Acrobat and print.
Solution 3: Remove all documents in the printer queue.
To see if there are multiple documents stuck in the printer queue and delete them:
1. Close Acrobat.
2. Choose Start > Settings > Printers And Faxes.
3. Double-click the printer you are attempting to print to.
4. If there are documents in the queue, choose File > Cancel All Documents. It may be necessary to restart your computer after choosing this option.
5. Start Acrobat and print.
Solution 4: Make sure your printer is online.
The printer you are printing to could be set offline within the operating system. To see if the printer is set offline and set it online, do the following:
1. Close Acrobat.
2. Choose Start > Settings > Printers And Faxes.
3. Right-click the printer you are attempting to print to.
— If you see an option to Set Printer Online, then the printer is currently offline. Therefore, choose the option Set Printer Online.
— If you see an option to Set Printer Offline, then the printer is currently online. Proceed to the next solution.
4. Open Acrobat and print.
Solution 5: Remove and reinstall the printer driver.
Contact the printer manufacturer for the latest version of the driver for the printer.
Background information
In some instances, a PDF file can contain damaged content such as images or fonts that cannot be rendered by Acrobat during the printing process, causing this error to occur. Choosing Print As Image bypasses that rendering operation by sending the printer a rasterized image of the document. This error could also be caused by damaged Acrobat preferences or outdated/corrupt printer drivers. There maybe specific printer driver issues on your system which may require you to troubleshoot the drivers with the printer manufacturer.
Solution 1: If you are printing to a Brother printer, update your printer.
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FIXED: The Document Could Not Be Printed [Adobe Acrobat]
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- Adobe document could not be printed? We got the right fixes.
- Reinstall the software to fix bugs and get all the enhancements of the latest version.
- Using the Print as Image is also a decent workaround that might work for some.
- Converting to a different format can also work.
Adobe’s forum includes posts about a This document could not be printed error that pops up for some users. That error message pops up for Adobe Acrobat users when they try to print PDF documents.
Consequently, the users can’t print any Portable Document Format with the software. This is how Acrobat users can fix the This document could not be printed error.
Why is Adobe saying the document could not be printed?
Before we attempt to fix the issue, we have to rule out what’s causing it. Here are some of the most common culprits:
- The document is corrupt
- Your printer drivers are out of date
- The document contains images or fonts that cannot be rendered
- You opened the Adobe document in a browser and not in the native Adobe app
How do you fix the document that could not be printed?
1. Reinstall Adobe Acrobat
If you are unable to print PDF documents, your current Adobe Acrobat Reader might be corrupted. The easiest way to fix this issue is by reinstalling the software altogether.
By doing so, you not only fix your printing situation, but you also benefit from the latest enhancements and newest features that come with the Reader’s most recent version.
Long story short, that’s your chance to easily convert web pages and Microsoft Office documents (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) to PDFs and compress them for a smaller size.
Even more, you can scan and print to PDF, split, merge and compare PDF files, or even edit them (manage data in scanned tables, rearrange, delete and rotate pages in a PDF).
2. Update the printer driver
The document could not be printed error could be due to an outdated or corrupted printer driver. If so, updating the printer driver will probably resolve the issue.
The simplest way to install, update, or fix a third-party driver is to use a dedicated tool such as Outbyte Driver Updater to do the job for you.
Without such a tool, you would have to manually go to each manufacturer’s website and download each driver separately.
Unfortunately, this leaves room for errors such as downloading the wrong drivers, or not getting the latest one yet.
However, those will just be a problem of the past if you use Outbyte Driver Updater since all of the above will be done automatically by the program.
Outbyte Driver Updater
Keep your printer driver in check to prevent printing errors from happening again.
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3. Select the Print as Image option
- First, open the PDF document that doesn’t print in Acrobat.
- Click File and Print to open the window shown in the image directly below.
- Press the Advanced button to open further options.
- Select the Print As Image option on the Advanced Print Setup window.
- Click the OK button.
- Then press the Print button.
Some Acrobat users have confirmed that selecting the Print As Image option fixes the An error occurred while printing the document error. A PDF document might contain images and fonts that can’t be rendered.
Selecting Print As Image prints the PDF as a rasterized image of the document instead. Acrobat users can select the Print As Image setting as described above.
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4. Remove documents from the print queue
- Open Cortana by clicking Type here to search on the taskbar.
- Enter the keyword printer in the search box.
- Then click Printers and Scanners to open the window shown directly below.
- Select the printer you’re trying to print the PDF with.
- Press the Open queue button to open the window directly below.
- Click Printer and choose Cancel All Documents if there are documents in the queue.
- Restart Windows after clearing the print queue.
There might be some documents stuck in the printer queue. If so, emptying the print queue could help if Adobe cannot print documents. Follow the guidelines above to clear the print queue in Windows 10.
5. Turn off PDF/A View Mode
- To do that, click Edit and choose Preferences in Acrobat.
- Click Documents on the Preferences window to open the settings shown directly below.
- Select Never on the PDF/A View Mode drop-down menu.
- Then press the OK button.
- Open and print the PDF in Acrobat.
Turning PDF/A View Mode off has fixed the document could not be printed error for some Acrobat users, so be sure to try it.
6. Open the document in Google Chrome or alternative PDF software
This resolution is more of a workaround than a fix. Remember that you can print the PDF from alternative software.
So, try opening the document in Google Chrome or another browser that supports the PDF format.
To do that, right-click the PDF file you need to print and select Open with > Google Chrome. That will open the PDF in Chrome. Then users can click the Print button to print out the document.
Alternatively, users can print from alternative PDF software. Foxit Reader, PDF Annotation Lite, and Xodo are three notable alternatives to Adobe Acrobat.
Click the Free Foxit Reader Download button on Foxit’s website to save the installer for that software. Then open the Foxit Reader’s setup wizard to add the software to Windows.
This is a workaround, but it could fix An error occurred while printing the document message, so feel free to try it.
7. Convert the PDF to a DOCX document
- Open the PDF to DOCX page in a browser.
- Select the PDF to DOCX tab.
- Press the Upload Files button to select a PDF to convert.
- Then select Download All to save the new DOCX document to a folder.
- The document downloads as a compressed ZIP.
- Users can extract it by opening the ZIP in File Explorer, clicking Extract all, and pressing Extract.
- Users can extract it by opening the ZIP in File Explorer, clicking Extract all, and pressing Extract.
- Thereafter, open the DOCX document in a word processor and print it from there.
Acrobat users can also convert the PDFs they need to print to Word DOCX documents. Then users can open the documents in MS Word, or other word processors, to print them.
This is a workaround, and you’ll have to repeat it for every affected document, but it’s still useful if Adobe cannot print the document.
Those are some of the best resolutions for fixing this error.
Let us know which one of the solutions enlisted solved The document could not be printed error for you in the comments section below.
More about the topics: Printer Errors
Matthew Adams
Windows Hardware Expert
Matthew is a freelancer who has produced a variety of articles on various topics related to technology. His main focus is the Windows OS and all the things surrounding it. He is passionate about the tech world, always staying up-to-date with the latest and greatest. With an analytical view, he likes problem-solving, focusing on errors and their causes. In his free time, he likes to read and write about history and tries to always develop new skills.
Matthew Adams
Windows Hardware Expert
He is passionate about everything surrounding Microsoft’s OS, focusing on troubleshooting guides & tips for everyday problems.
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[Solved] How to Fix ‘Adobe the Document Could Not Be Printed’ Issue?
Get started with the easiest way to manage PDFs with PDFelement!
Adobe Acrobat Reader is one of the most flexible documents editing and reading tools out there. One of the formats that it supports is PDF. There are different PDF reading tools out there and Adobe Reader is one of the best. In this article, we are going to discuss how you can solve the problems.
But in the Adobe forum, you will find posts, such as ‘Adobe Acrobat the document could not be printed‘. The error message can pop up for the users of Acrobat when they try printing the PDF documents. As a result, the users are unable to print any PDF with the software. It is how users can solve the problem of ‘This document could not be printed’ on Acrobat.
In this article
Methods to Fix «Adobe the Document Could Not Be Printed» Problem
If you want to know how to solve the problem of ‘Adobe this document could not be printed‘, you can try out the methods given below.
1. Update Your Printer Driver
‘The document could not be printed’ error can occur more frequently than you know especially if it is a corrupted or outdated printer driver. In case that happens, update the printer driver and it can help in solving the problem.
The easiest way to update, install, or fix a third-party driver is to use a dedicated driver to do the task for you. If you do not have a tool, you will have to go to the manufacturer’s website to download the driver, separately.
But this can leave room for errors, such as not getting the latest ones or downloading the wrong drivers. Nevertheless, those are going to be a problem of the past if you use a good tool, and then everything will be taken care of by the tool.
To update print drivers, you can follow the steps given below,
- Press on the ‘Windows’ + ‘R’ button to open the ‘Run’ utility.
- Now, you have to type ‘devmgmt.msc’ in the search box and then press ‘Enter’ to open the ‘Device Manager’.
- Expand the ‘Print queues’ option and then right-click on the printer driver you are using.
- Choose the ‘Update Driver’ option from the given menu.
- Click on ‘Search automatically for drivers’.
- Follow the instructions given on the screen to complete the updating process.
2. Re-Install Adobe Acrobat Reader
If you get the message that Adobe cannot print document, chances are Adobe Acrobat Reader might be corrupted. The best way to solve the problem is to reinstall the software.
When you do so, you will not just fix the printing problem but also get the new features and latest updates that come with the recent version of the Reader.
With this, you can convert Microsoft Office documents and web pages to PDFs and compress them to smaller sizes. Moreover, you can scan and print to PDF, merge, split, and compare the PDF files. You also have the option to edit them.
To reinstall, you first have to uninstall the Adobe Reader from the PC. Here are the steps you have to follow.
- Open the ‘Run’ utility.
- Then tap ‘appwiz.cpl’ and press ‘Enter’ for opening the ‘Programs and Features’ panel.
- Look for Adobe Reader among the apps that are listed and right-click on it.
- Choose the ‘Uninstall’ option.
- Now, follow the instructions given on the screen for completing the process.
When you are done uninstalling the Adobe Acrobat Reader, you can open the official website for downloading the latest version. As soon as the download is complete, run the installer and then follow the given over the screen to install the reader.
3. Print as Image
Adobe Acrobat Reader might not be able to print the document since it is unable to process the images in it. In such a case, you will have to use the ‘Print as image’ option that will make the reader print the PDF as a rasterized image. For doing this, you will be able to follow the steps given below.
- First, you need to open the PDF document that does not print in Acrobat.
- Now, click on ‘File and Print’.
- This opens a window where you will have to press on ‘Advanced’. It will open further options.
- Choose the ‘Print as Image’ option on the ‘Advanced Print Setup’ window.
- Then click on the ‘OK’ option.
- When you are done, press the ‘Print’ button.
Many Acrobat users have confirmed that choosing the ‘Print as Image’ option will fix the ‘An error occurred while printing the document’ problem. A PDF document can have fonts and images that cannot be rendered.
Choosing ‘Print as Image’ prints the PDF as an image of the document. People using Acrobat can choose the ‘Print as Image’ settings given above.
Facing problems with Adobe Acrobat Reader? Try PDFelement, the best alternative to Adobe. Check out the link given below to learn more.
Use Adobe Acrobat Reader Alternative to Print — PDFelement
You can use the Adobe Acrobat Reader alternative to solve this problem. One of the best tools to use is Wondershare PDFelement — PDF Editor. If you are encountering the problem that Adobe cannot print a document, you can use PDFelement to print it.
We are going to discuss the steps you have to follow to print PDF using PDFelement. You have to install PDFelement on the computer to view and print the PDF file.
To print the PDF document, set the page settings after that click on the ‘Print’ button given on the toolbar or just press ‘CTRL+P’. When you are done click on ‘OK’ to print the PDF file.
1. Setting Up the Page
Choose ‘File’ from the above menu bar. Choose ‘Set Page’ from the given drop-down list. Check the page settings are as recommended.
2. Word Setting
Generally, it is to use some text from PDF. For instance, if you have to extract a short text, you can just copy and paste it. Use PDFelement and complete the word setting without any hassle.
3. Image Setting
To insert an image into a PDF, you have to use the insert option within the program. Thereafter, you can save the image to your document and save it. So, before you check out the steps given below download the software and install it on your device. Now, you will simply have to follow the step-by-step guide to include the image in the PDF.
- Open the program on the computer to go over to the bottom left and then click on ‘Open Files’. A window appears to enable you to browse to a PDF file that will let you upload the PDF file for inserting an image. Browse through the PDF file and then click on the preferred file. When you are done, click on ‘Open’ to insert the PDF into the program.
- Choose ‘Edit’ on the menu and click on the image icon, which is labeled ‘Add Image’.
- You will notice a pop-up window with images. Click on the image path and choose the right image. Click on ‘Open’ and you can insert the image into the PDF file. Inside the PDF file, you can just drag the file to any destination you want.
How to Prevent «Adobe Acrobat the Document Could Not Be Printed»?
There are a few ways to prevent Adobe Acrobat from printing documents that could not be printed. Let’s take a look at them.
- If you can open a PDF file but cannot print it, you can use the ‘Save or Print’ option. The PDF file can be locked using a password for security.
- When you are printing a PDF and an error pops up on the window ‘The document could not be printed’, it means that the error is in the software you are using. To overcome the problem, just uninstall the software and reinstall it again. Thereafter, you have to re-insert or switch to some other PDF program and the issue will be fixed automatically.
- Make sure that the printer driver is up-to-date before you proceed to print the PDF documents. If the printer driver is of the newest version and is up-to-date, you might encounter lesser errors with the printing.
- Make sure you are using the authentic browser to open the document. The browser should support PDF format. It will help you print the PDF file without any errors.
Bottom Line
Now, you know what you have to do when you see an Adobe document could not be printed. Adobe Acrobat Reader is one of the best PDF readers and editors out there. You can use the tricks and tips given above to solve the problem. However, if you are looking for a good alternative to Adobe Acrobat is PDFelement. It is one of the most efficient PDF reading and editing tools. It is known as the all-in-one PDF solution. When you use this tool, you can solve the problems you might be facing during printing.