Garbage Text When Printing PDFs? Fix It With This Tip

Submitted by schwarz on

If you ever try printing a PDF from within Adobe Reader but all the text prints as garbage (“greeked” text), use this tip to work around it.

  1. From the Print dialog box in Adobe Reader, click the Advanced button in the bottom left corner of the print window

  2. Click the checkbox next to “Print as image” and click the OK button



    According to the author of the Routing By Rumor blog, "I think doing this causes the entire document to be sent to the printer as “raster graphics”, rather than as PCL containing a mix of graphics and ASCII text."

Hope this tip works for you the next time it happens to you.

And yes, this is a real example of the worst garbagfied PDF I've ever dealt with:

↬ Hat tip to My Adobe Acrobat PDF Files Are Printing Garbage Text (Sometimes)

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Comments

PDF files print garbage

Submitted by aeroland (not verified) on

Brilliant! Fix works. I am eternally grateful. There is just something bothering me. What possible reason could there have ever been to have an option 'Print as image'? Who would ever want an image printed with the data 'greeked'? The CIA? Is Adobe owned and run by Microsoft? If yes, that explains everything.

Re: PDF files print garbage

Submitted by LuckyThirteenLLC (not verified) on

"Brilliant! Fix works. I am eternally grateful. There is just something bothering me. What possible reason could there have ever been to have an option 'Print as image'? Who would ever want an image printed with the data 'greeked'? The CIA? Is Adobe owned and run by Microsoft? If yes, that explains everything"

The option exists to force the object to print correctly when the postscript interpreter malfunctions or fails to parse the document to the printer. IF the image prints gibbrish then you use the "Print as Image" so that it will NOT print as gibbrish any more (it doesn't cause the garbage to be printed)... I hope that helps to clarify any confusion.

Another way

Submitted by kalyn (not verified) on

Thanks bud, your solution works great! Here are other options to consider.

I had this problem bugging me for a long time now. However, I tried to use alternative pdf readers like perfect pdf or foxit reader and they worked fine. Thus, those of you who are still experiencing this bug, go ahead and download the alternatives (google Foxit reader or perfect pdf reader)

But recently I was I was stuck with one secured pdf document that had special embedded watermarks in it. When I would open that pdf doc in either foxit or perfect reader the markups would come in front of the text making impossible to read. Only adobe reader would send the markups behind the text, making it the doc legible. So, I had to use adobe reader to print the text.

Here's how I found a solution. Unless your work requires u to use all of the pdf's intricacies, just go and download previous versions of adobe reader. I downloaded adobe reader 7 and my printer (I run LaserJet 1010) started printing it in "decent" English now ;) . Good luck.

adobe garbage

Submitted by Grant (not verified) on

"Remove tick from 'rely on system fonts only..' when printing in the print setup for adobe PDF documents"

That did the trick! Thanks!

printing gibberish

Submitted by bikerboy (not verified) on

thank you so much for posting the solution for this gibberish problem with adobe i can now print off my bike insurance documents

Printing gibberish and on load of paper

Submitted by Marcus (not verified) on

Thanks fixed my problem by ticking "print as image"
When I tried to print a PDF on a HP LaserJet 100 Color MFP M175nw it would sometimes print a line or two of gibberish until it emptied the paper tray (or I pulled the power cable) even if it was a single page PDF.

Thanks again

Google maps printing as garbage text

Submitted by Jeff S (not verified) on

Thanks for the idea about PDF problems. When printing our google maps, the Print Destination was set to PDF Files, and then I had to Print using System Dialogue. I changed the Print Destination to our printer and it solved the problem. Thanks again for noticing the PDF problem.