When a PDF won't print, it's usually one of three things: the file has a print restriction, the print job is too big for the printer, or the file is damaged. The symptom tells you which. We tested each one, including a 1 MB PDF that turned into a 13.8 MB print job, so here's how to find the cause and fix it, mostly without new software.
Start by noticing exactly what fails, because each symptom points somewhere different. A grey Print button is a permissions problem. A job that vanishes from the queue is usually size. An error message about the document is usually the file itself. And if nothing prints from any app, the PDF isn't the problem at all.
| What you see | Most likely cause | First thing to try |
|---|---|---|
| Print is greyed out, or prints say "not allowed" | The file has a print restriction | Ask the sender, or remove restrictions on a file you're entitled to print |
| Job sits in the queue, then disappears | Print stream too big for the printer's memory | Compress the PDF, or print a page range at a time |
| "The document could not be printed" | Damaged file, or a page the driver can't process | Repair the file, or try "Print as image" |
| Only part of the page prints | Scaling or paper size mismatch | Choose "Fit" or "Shrink oversized pages" |
| Pages come out blank | Missing fonts, layers or form fields | See our guide to blank prints |
| Nothing prints from anything | Printer, driver or connection | Print a test page from the printer's settings |
First, print one plain page from another app. If that fails too, restart the printer, clear any stuck job from the queue and try again.
A PDF can carry permission flags that tell the viewer what's allowed: printing, copying text, editing, adding comments. The author can switch printing off, or allow only "low resolution" printing. The file still opens normally, so the restriction is easy to miss.
To check, open the document properties (Ctrl+D in Acrobat Reader, or File, Properties) and look at the security tab. On a command line, pdfinfo spells it out. Our test file, with printing switched off, reported Encrypted: yes (print:no copy:yes change:yes addNotes:yes algorithm:AES-256).
Here's the part people don't expect: those flags are a request, not a lock. When we fed the same file to a different program (poppler's PDF-to-PostScript converter) it converted it without complaint. Whether a restriction is honored depends on the software. If the file needs no password to open, the flags can be removed without one too: our PDF unlock tool strips restrictions-only encryption in your browser, and our test file came out reporting Encrypted: no. Only do this with documents you have the right to print.
What travels to the printer isn't the PDF you see. Your computer converts each page into the printer's own language (PostScript, PCL or a raster image), and that version can be many times bigger. We measured it with five test files:
| Test file | PDF size | Sent to the printer (PostScript) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 page of text (11-pt Helvetica) | 3.6 KB | 60 KB |
| 1 page with a 12-megapixel photo (504 ppi) | 1.08 MB | 1.39 MB |
| 10 pages repeating that photo | 1.09 MB | 13.8 MB |
| The same 10 pages re-rendered at 150 DPI | 1.28 MB | 1.63 MB |
The third row is the one that catches people. A PDF can store a photo once and show it on every page, like a logo or a background. The print stream doesn't get that shortcut. Our 10-page file was barely larger than the one-page version, 1.09 MB, but the printer would have received 13.8 MB, because the full photo was sent again for every page. A printer with little memory can stall on a job like that, or print a few pages and quit.
The fix is to shrink what each page sends. Our PDF compressor has a re-render mode that redraws every page as one image at the resolution you pick. At its default of 150 DPI, the last row of the table shows the result: the 10-page job dropped from 13.8 MB to 1.63 MB. The trade-off is that text becomes part of the picture, so you can't select or search it, which doesn't matter on paper. Print from that copy and keep the original. You can also print a few pages at a time, or plug in with a cable rather than Wi-Fi for very large jobs.
Acrobat Reader's Advanced print settings include "Print as image," and it gets around plenty of odd failures: broken fonts, strange transparency, pages a driver chokes on. The catch is size. Every page goes out as a full picture, and an uncompressed Letter page grows fast:
| Resolution | Pixels per page | Raw size per page |
|---|---|---|
| 150 DPI | 1,275 × 1,650 | 6.3 MB |
| 300 DPI | 2,550 × 3,300 | 25.2 MB |
| 600 DPI | 5,100 × 6,600 | 101 MB |
So "Print as image" can make a stuck queue worse. Save it for a page or two that won't print any other way.
Messages like "The document could not be printed," "There was an error processing a page" or a crash partway through usually mean the file has a problem. Interrupted downloads and mangled attachments are common sources. Open it in a different viewer, such as your browser. If it fails there too, or pages are missing, it's the file.
Our PDF repair tool rebuilds the file's internal structure, which fixes most cross-reference and "damaged file" errors; how to repair a corrupt PDF covers what it can and can't recover. If a form or annotations are what break the print, flattening the PDF turns them into ordinary page content.
That's almost always scaling. A PDF made for A4 printed on Letter paper, or a page with content running into the margins, can lose its edges if the print dialog is set to "Actual size". Choose "Fit" instead. For files from outside the US, how to print an A4 PDF on Letter paper shows how much each setting shrinks the page. And if the paper comes out but parts are missing or white, that's a different problem: why does my PDF print blank covers fonts, layers and form fields.
Usually because the file has a print restriction, or because it's too large for the printer to process. Check the document properties for a security setting first. If printing is allowed, try printing a few pages at a time or compressing the file.
If it opens without a password, the security is only a set of permission flags. The person who sent it can give you an unrestricted copy, or, for a file you have the right to print, a restrictions remover can take the flags off. If it needs a password to open, you need that password.
Usually the printer ran out of memory. Images get sent in full for every page they appear on, so a file that's small on disk can produce a print job ten times bigger. Re-render it at 150 DPI with a PDF compressor, or print in smaller page ranges.
It sends each page to the printer as a picture instead of as text and graphics. That gets around font and rendering errors, but the job gets much bigger: a single Letter page at 300 DPI is about 25 MB before compression. Use it only for pages that won't print any other way.
Print a plain test page from another app. If that fails too, it's the printer, driver or connection. If other files print and only this PDF fails, try opening it in a different viewer; if it fails there as well, the file is the likely cause.