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Alliosaaa
Alliosaaa
Inspiring
May 8, 2019
Question

Fields Misaligned Line Up When Printed

  • May 8, 2019
  • 2 replies
  • 2693 views

Hi there!

I am completely stumped by this issue and am really hoping I can get some help!

We have a PDF form that is printed onto a bank contract (8.5" x 17"). I painstakingly laid out each field on a blank PDF page so that it would print correctly onto the contract, and it has been working for the better part of a year.

Today I received a call saying that for some reason, the contract is no longer printing correctly. A salesperson sent me a scan of the document, which showed the fields at the top of the page printing too low, the fields in the middle printing perfectly, and the fields at the bottom of the page printing too high. Below screenshot shows a portion of that scan. The last number ($34,789.00) should be on the line "Amount Financed".

I adjusted the fields accordingly, but upon testing it, I found that everything I adjusted was then off by a line in the other direction. (I tested this on an old contract, so please excuse the state of the scan):

I then printed the original document that has always worked, and it printed just fine:

It seems to me that my original still works just fine, and the salesperson's printer (or their version of Reader, which I have yet to confirm) is doing something wonky. Could this possibly be a problem with printer speed? If it grabs the page too fast, could that cause the fields to be misaligned? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!!

This topic has been closed for replies.

2 replies

Abambo
Community Expert
AbamboCommunity Expert
Community Expert
May 8, 2019

No, I do not think that this can be something with printer speed or similar. Modern printers and printing sub-systems are basically working as page printers. They compose a page in-memory (either computer or printer) and print that out.

ABAMBO | Hard- and Software Engineer | Photographer
Dov Isaacs
Dov Isaacs
Legend
May 8, 2019

Without knowing exactly what that salesperson is using to open, fill (?), and print that PDF form from, we can't help here.

We do know that a number of non-Adobe PDF readers have particular problems with PDF forms. For example, Apple's Preview application is known to corrupt forms.

If the problem is occurring with something other than Adobe Reader or Acrobat, advise the salesperson to switch to at least Adobe Reader with a fresh copy of the form and see if the problem reoccurs.

          - Dov

- Dov Isaacs, former Adobe Principal Scientist (April 30, 1990 - May 30, 2021)
Alliosaaa
AlliosaaaAuthor
Inspiring
May 9, 2019

Thanks for your reply! The form is opened, filled and printed all within Reader. I don't have the exact version the salesperson is using but I am working on getting that information. Is there perhaps a recent update to reader that could affect printing? This document has performed well for the better part of the year, and all of a sudden it's not behaving as expected with no changes to the document or printer.

Dov Isaacs
Dov Isaacs
Legend
May 9, 2019

At Adobe, we are not aware of any problems with forms printing with any recent versions of Acrobat or Reader.

It might be helpful if you can post a sample of the form for us to examine here at Adobe.

          - Dov

- Dov Isaacs, former Adobe Principal Scientist (April 30, 1990 - May 30, 2021)
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