How to fix broken "Print to AdobePDF" ?

Thanks for the information, but unfortunately I am not very good at finding needles in haystacks!    I do not have the programming expertise to troubleshoot using the Windows errors, I can only report them.

One more thing:  I also tried to "add printer" as described in this thread, and I was able to add the "Adobe PDF Converter" printer (picked the 5th and then the 6th from the list of identically named printers).  When I attempt to print to that printer, I do NOT get the pop-up error dialog box.  Instead, the computer seems to "go through the motions" of printing, but no PDF is actually produced.

Here is some weird detail on this:  When I try and print, I get the normal "Save As" dialog box, with a strangely pre-populated file name for the printout (looks like random letters and numbers i.e. "9WOIUC9B.pdf" ).  I select "Save" and then.... the activity just fades away...nothing appears, no PDF created.  HOWEVER---- when I go to "Recent Items" using the Windows 7 start button the PDF is LISTED AS IF it was created.  When I select it from the recent items list, I then get a dialog box that says the file cannot be found and inviting me to search for it.  Of course it is not there.  If I hover my mouse over the recent items listing, it shows me the location where the file was "saved" per the dialog box, but the file is not there!

One more wrinkle:  I also have an old installation of Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro, worked for years right up until I updated to IE11 and I did some Windows Update..too many changes at once to isolate.  Here is my wrinkle:  At computer bootup I now get an Acrodist.exe error dialog box:

I hit "OK" and it closes.  Now, interestingly, I can subsequently launch Acrodist.exe and it WILL launch without error!  However, when I try to "Print to PDF" from within any application, I get a similar but different error dialog box as follows:

The memory location is different.   The symptoms I experience are similar to everyone else's after I hit "OK" here:  The printing dialogue launches and the blue progress bar appears but then hangs. 

After the 11.0.0.8 update that came today, I noticed that the one application that it can print from successfully is Acrobat itself. I don't know if that was always true. This could be a clue.

Listen guys this inability to print PDF to file has been plaguing me for a while with a couple of work arounds. I tackled the problem after hours fooling around and mostly searching for an answer or an update. It turns out I changed my security permissions as creator in printer properties to allow printing and it worked like a charm. This was a quick fix for me and I googled this problem like crazy. Hope this helps somebody like myself someday. I had to figure this out to print detail drawings for submittable.  Good Luck

Hi,

Adobe team is looking into the issue and we are trying to replicate the issue at our end for Adobe PDF Printer. Just to confirm, if any of you are still facing this issue?

We will look into your problems and will try our best to resolve it. Thanks.

I am having the same problem with Adobe Acrobat Pro XI 11.0.7 on a Windows 8.1 64 bit computer.  From within any application (Word, Excel, PPT, Browser, etc.) navigate to Print... and select AdobePDF as the printer.    The background print process hangs until the application is halted.  Then the Access Denied box pops up and then the distiller progress box.  This only started recently (within the last 3 months) for me.  I update my apps/op system relatively regularly.  There are several annoying workarounds - save to PDF, or perhaps my favorite, use a different PDF product.

Running an application like Word as "administrator" (e.g. right click the word icon in the Office directory and click "Run as Administrator") improves the situation but doesn't always fix it (which is puzzling, since my user id is already an "administrator").  I've also marked all files under my UserID windows folder (Users>myuserid) as "Full Control" as suggested by several windows security policy posts, but to no avail. Thanks to everyone's experience so far, I've concluded deleting/adding the printer or uninstalling/installing Adobe is a waste of time. Since this started recently, it has to be either a Windows or Adobe update, no doubt a technical response to a security hole discovered by a hacker.  It might also be possible that this has been caused by the UserID change that Windows recently introduced (e.g. "use your MS Live ID instead of the simple thing you used to use").  That makes some sense to me, as security policy might not be exactly the same for the old ID and the converted Live ID.   Short of dropping back to the root C:\ and changing security to "full control" for the entire machine, I'm quite frustrated. 

Certainly, someone from Adobe MUST know what is causing the problems...

I'll watch this space for a miracle to occur.  In the meantime - Save to PDF.  Ugh.

I too have had this problem lately.  Perhaps if I weigh in, this thread will assist in incrementally approaching the tipping point whereby Acrobat Support will take notice.

My particulars, similar to those reported by others:

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When printing to Acrobat 10.1.8 from Chrome, IE, Firefox, the print job never gets enqueued, I never reach the Acrobat "Save As" dialogue box, and when checking the Acrobat printer status (Acrobat is my default printer) through "Start > Devices and Printers," Windows Seven says the printer has been offline for so many days.  To summarize, I do not receive any error message when I set the browser print job in motion via the browser print dialogue box; rather, the focus is simply returned to the browser without any action, and on checking, no print job is enqueued to the "offline" Acrobat printer.  I have not found any Window's method of putting the Acrobat printer back "online."

I tried repairing Acrobat from "Control Panel > Programs and Features" which did not help, but opening Acrobat 10.1.8 and selecting "Help > Repair Acrobat Installation" from the Menu restored the online status of the printer; I was then able to print, saving the print job to a file with the Acrobat "Save As" dialogue box.

However, Acrobat subsequently goes offline again, and the above symptoms repeat.  The symptoms definitely recur after the PC is rebooted, although I have not tracked if the symptoms recur on the next, immediate reboot.  Effectively, every time I want to use Acrobat as a printer, I have to go through the "Help > Repair Acrobat Installation" routine if I want to print to Acrobat, full stop.  This has become tiresome, hence my coming to this forum.

I have gone through this drill 4-5 or more times now.  The "Help > Repair Acrobat Installation" workaround requires 15 minutes.  I have had numerous versions of Acrobat as my default printer for many years (did I say I abhor paper), and have not had this problem before.  It is not practical to have to go through Acrobat "Help > Repair Acrobat Installation" when I want to print to Acrobat, as I said, my default printer.  Since Acrobat is chosen as the printer because many applications do not have inherent "Save as Acrobat" functionality, this turns out to be fairly obstructive to my trying to get my work done.

I hope my workaround is helpful to desperate users, despite its pathetic nature.

Much more importantly, thank you, Acrobat Support, for taking notice.

Hi StephenB427, ppmartin and carhurc,

I think I'm having the same problem as you. I'm running Acrobat Pro X on Win 7 Ultimate 64bit. Just curious if you have used any of the solutions laid out in the following links.

http://www.sevenforums.com/software/96810-acrobat-8-does-not-create-adobe-pdf-printer.html

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/303011

http://helpx.adobe.com/x-productkb/global/disable-user-account-control-uac.html

I can see my Pro X and Distiller. They are working fine on their own. I see an Adobe PDF Printer, but my printing stays in the queue and does not come out of the spool. So I thought I had to re-create the "Adobe PDF Printer" from the Control Panel. Here's where I'm stuck. I don't even see any "Documents \*.pdf" port or "Desktop \*.pdf" port, which several solutions have mentioned. I'm quite lost to be honest.

Wanted to leave a post acknowledging that I'm another user having the same print to pdf problem. Running Acrobat Pro X on Win 7 Ultimate 64bit. Have never had any problems with the print to pdf feature until the last couple of weeks (the 10.1.18 update?). I tried similar steps as the others including repair with no change. Hangs/fails in all program's I've attempted to print to pdf. It seems to be a permissions error as I am able to print to pdf if I run the program with administrator privileges.

I do not have the answer, but I have exactly the same problem, although with Adobe Acrobat Pro X on a Win7 Pro 64b system.

The "Save as AdobePDF" works well from dedicated programs, but the generic "Print to AdobePDF" function, which I have used with no problem for the past two years, suddendly stopped working a few days ago (any program trying to print to PDF would now freeze).

I tried repairing the Acrobat installation, I also went for a clean uninstall using the ad-hoc tool from Adobe, followed by a registry cleaning with jv16 Power Tools, and a reinstall + update (rebooting my PC between each key step), but without success.

I emptied the %temp% folder to no avail.

Let's hope someone will have found a trick to fix this frustrating issue.