Acrobat DC Update Changes Default Printer and Print Preferences

[Meeeeeeeee]

Hi all,

This is a problem that has been going on for years, and it's time it was addressed. I came across this post in 2020 https://community.adobe.com/t5/acrobat-discussions/update-of-acrobat-dc-changes-default-printer/td-p... that describes the same problem. I've been tolerating it for at least as long, but I'm so tired of it, that I'm going to try to bring it to the attention of Adobe, as I'm sure it needs a development fix, rather than something in setting, or something I'm missing.

If you don't have Adobe Acrobat as your default printer, or if you only use the default printer preferences, you will not even know that this problem exists.

I try not to print out anything I don't have to, to paper, so I always have my default printer set to Adobe Acrobat. I do not let Windows manage the printer, because that's a stupid feature and can't possibly help me, or anyone else in this world in any way at all, that can't be solved by specifying the default printer manually.

Every time Adobe Acrobat does an update - and you don't know when this happens, because it happens in the background with no notification, the default printer is changed to something else. This is mildly irritating, as when you are working quickly, you can miss that your expected Acrobat printer is not selected. I often use CTRL + P, then Enter, to speed up workflow. To add to the frustration and wasted paper though, if I do intercept the print and change the default printer back to Adobe Acrobat, the printing preferences have changed also. Again, mildly irritating, but the frustration is building because; if I don't remember to check and change the default preferences, Acrobat spews out a document or documents with sometimes hundreds of pages or garbled junk, that I have to wait to finish and then delete, before starting over.

There are two settings in the printing preferences that I use, that always get reset when Acrobat updates - firstly, I have a modified print setting, which controls my quality of print, and second, there is a tick box to "Rely on system fonts only; do not use document fonts". This always gets ticked on, and because "system fonts" does not contain my document font, I get the garbled junk output, that multiplies up into hundreds of pages sometimes, from a one or two page document.

So frustration really building now, particular if that happens. But it's easy to manually reset - I hear you say. Well it is, but you can't do it in your document, because that won't set the printer preferences globally, so it will happen again in another application somewhere. So you have to interrupt your flow and depart from the document where you've discovered the printer isn't default - so an update must have occurred, and go to the system setting and printers. There you have to reset the default printer, and go into preferences and reset my normal settings, before I can return to my document and continue to print.

So, there are three problems as I see it:

1. The default printer is changed to another printer during an Acrobat update.

2. The customer set printing preferences are not maintained during the Acrobat update.

3. The error handling of the so called "missing" system fonts - which are installed in Windows BTW, is appalling. This should fail over to a usable font, or at worst, fail to print with an error.

So Adobe, time to step up and resolve this years old issue, that drives me nuts every two or three weeks!

Of course, if the community have any input that I haven't covered, or suggestions, I'd happily hear them.

Thanks all,

M

[Abambo]

I would expect updating Acrobat would delete the virtual printer, thus the change of the default printer.

You should disallow automatic updates of Acrobat and update at your pace.

[Meeeeeeeee]

Hello Amobo,

Thank you for your reply.

I take your point about the virtual printer being deleted, but it should not be beyond the wit of the developers to reinstate it after the update.

Yes, you are correct, I could disable updates, but I think you have to disable the entire suite? Maybe not, but if I did that, I'd probably end up forgetting to update for 6 months at a time. A workaround, I'd call it, but yes, I could do that.

M

[Abambo]

No, Acrobat has it's own setting in the properties.

I would set a reminder for once a month or each two months. And you could script the printer resetting. 

Others may have more elaborated solutions for you, like scripting the upgrade(-test) and printer configuration afterwards. That would be a full service solution for once a week.

[Meeeeeeeee]

Hello Abambo,

Thank you for your suggestions.

M

[Meeeeeeeee]

Hi,

It seems like there are no solutions out there to address this problem, other than workarounds, that I myself have to concoct and implement. This tells me very firmly, that the problem is a software problem, that Adobe need to address. As it's been an issue for many, many years, it's time they took action.

Will they take action, or just continue to ignore that it exists?

Adobe, if you have anyone reading these forums, it's really not that difficult:

1. Restore the default printer after updates. Check if it is the default before updating, if it is, restore it to the default afterwards.

2. Retain users settings through the update process.

3. Address the issue with spewing out pages of garbage if a font is missing.

Thanks to everyone that took the time to read and/or respond.

M

[Meeeeeeeee]

I find it incredible that Adobe themselves have no interest in this problem.

I do appreciate that vast numbers of users are not going to suffer this problem, at least not the entire problem anyway. If you don't keep Acrobat as your default printer, you probably won't get as frustrated, and many people will not even be aware of this post, but I suspect there are a huge number that are fed up with their default settings changing every update, and the update persistently setting "rely on system fonts only" to on. What is the point of embedding fonts if Adobe are going to effectively tell the printer to ignore them?

We have software development skills in-house so we are pretty confident that this is easily fixable. It's not going to take hundreds of development hours to resolve, they just need to take ownership of the problem.

M

[pamrCasa]

I just thought I would chime in and let you know you are not the only with this problem.  I keep the automated updates turned off and a reminder set for every 2 weeks to manually check for updates.  Each time an update installs and I have restarted my computer I then have to remember to go into Adobe Acrobat and turn the auto updates back off (because it will automatically turn back on which is really annoying) AND restore my Adobe PDF printer back to default and uncheck the "rely on system fonts" settings (sometimes it unchecks and sometimes it doesn't).

I wish more people would chime in on this so that maybe Adobe may realize this is something that needs to be fixed.  It seems like the only way to get that to happen is to call them but who has time for that?  Shouldn't part of the point of these message boards be to bring this stuff to their attention?

Pam

[Meeeeeeeee]

Thanks pamrCasa for your endorsement of the issue. I'm sure it affects more people than we think, forcing us to take some kind of manual action to overcome Adobe's poor coding around default printers and Acrobat printer updates.

It's not only frustrating when it happens and you have to undo (or revert) the changes, but it would be such an easy thing to fix, if they had the will.

Recently, I thought they'd fixed the tick box for "rely on system fonts", as I didn't have to change it back when Acrobat updated, but I think you're right, sometimes it gets re-ticked and sometimes it doesn't.

Calling them would just be a waste of time. You're not going to get through to anyone that would listen. They are clearly an organisation that DOESN'T listen to their customers.

M

[davidm10902125]

Just adding a ditto to this. This has been an ongoing issue for years, and both the page size and rely on system fonts issue regularly impacts my clients (in particuar their ERP system which relys on Adobe for invoicing etc). As an IT professional, I don't subscribe to the disable automatic updates suggestion, as they can often be important, and users' typically won't know (or have time to, or more importantly should need to worry about) manually applying updates. The issue is Adobe's ongoing ignorance of the issue or reluctance to pay it any attention.  I can see that the page size issue was raised some time ago in another forum (see below) as a bug fix/feature request, but presumably no further action taken...

https://acrobat.uservoice.com/forums/590923-acrobat-for-windows-and-mac/suggestions/43207461-printin...

[Meeeeeeeee]

That's a very good point davidm10902125

I hadn't considered the difficulties and frustration experienced by end users who are non-technical, and have maybe been resold Acrobat. Or even just end users who are being supported by IT companies, who are unable to provide any decent fix for this issue, that clearly lies at Adobe's feet. Until now, I had only focussed on my own frustrations with the situation - probably because I'm hugely frustrated by it.

And... you're quite right. Turning off updates is not something to be condoned, exccept if you're knowledgeable and are going to maintain regular updating yourself, manually.

M

[ohtobeoutdoors]

I just want to jump in here to say that this is an irritant to me, too, and has been for quite sometime.  It would not be difficult for Adobe to redevelop the Acrobat print driver so that printing preferences are preserved (say that really fast!) upon update.  Apple has figured that out how to do that unfailingly with even the smallest aspects on my iPhone.  It's just that Adobe's focus and budget are on their flagship software platforms.  Which is to say that they really don't care.  I would love for someone to prove me wrong.

[Meeeeeeeee]

ohtobeoutdoors this is the most frustrating thing; it wouldn't be difficult to fix.

I also find it very odd that a PDF is designed to have fonts embedded, it's the only way to maintain a "print" stable, identical version of the original document - just like a physical print, and yet the default is to tick "rely on system fonts only". There's a very high chance, when you're sending a "Portable Document", that it's going to end up on a system that doesn't have the fonts you used, and then it breaks.

Madness.

M

[Michael34693596t5mp]

12-Dec-2024
This is also an issue for me, and has been ongoing for years as for the original author. I am in Australia, and our standard paper size here is A4. Therefore when I create PDFs with the "Adobe PDF" function, it needs to be set to A4 so that the users of my documents see the output I am expecting. But whenever I see the page size back at "Letter", I know there's been an Adobe update. 
I don't think that one person's feedback on here about disabling updates is very workable, as I don't want security vulnerabilites due to not installing an update somewhere along the line.
The flow chart for the update, with respect to the Adobe PDF printer should be :
1. Save all current Adobe PDF settings.
2. Delete Adobe PDF.
3. Install updated Adobe PDF.
4. Restore saved Adobe PDF settings.
How can this be so damn difficult for a corporation as large as Adobe?
Hey @Google and @Alphabet: Is it time for you to step up and make a suit that is 100% compatible with Adobe DC so that we can all get off their expensive and sub-standard roundabout?

[Meeeeeeeee]

Michael34693596t5mp,

You nailed the point - "How can this be so damn difficult for a corporation as large as Adobe?"

It isn't difficult at all, so why don't they do it? They aren't listening to their customers, that's why. They think they know better.

M

[S. S]

Hi @Meeeeeeeee @Michael34693596t5mp @ohtobeoutdoors @davidm10902125 @pamrCasa,

We have heard your feedback, and taken this up.

The team will be working to get this fixed in the upcoming releases.

-Souvik

[Meeeeeeeee]

I hope this is a genuine comment S. S.

It will be a really positive move if this improvement does get implemented. We're waiting to see the change, which will improve your users experience.

Thanks,

M

[S. S]

@Meeeeeeeee,

We had a discussion internally around this yesterday, and the team has agreed to work on the case.

This is a designed behavior where the PDF Printer gets deleted and reinstalled with every update of the application, but this should change very soon.

-Souvik

[Meeeeeeeee]

Great,

I look forward to it.

M

[S. S]

Thanks, @Meeeeeeeee, for the patience!

Really appreciate it.

-Souvik

[pamrCasa]

As an everyday user of Adoba Acrobat I appreciate you chiming in on this.  It gives us a feeling that you guys are actually listing to us.  I look forward to hopefully seeing this fixed in the near future.

Thank you,

Pam

[ohtobeoutdoors]

Hallelujah!

[S. S]

Thanks, @ohtobeoutdoors @pamrCasa, for the kind words.

I understand this has been a frustrating experience and for quite a long time now.

I'll keep you guys updated on the progress.

Regards,

Souvik