Trouble printing mixed legal/letter size paper doc on a Mac

[lindae57689402]

I have a new MacBook Air and a new Brother HL-L5200/dtw printer. I am a notary and print loan signing packages that include both legal and letter size pages. When I use my old PC, I select "Choose paper size by PDF page size" and everything prints fine.  However, when using my Mac, all the pages print on both sides of the paper and either prints everything on legal or letter.  I have deleted and downloaded the driver twice and Brother tells me that it is an Adobe problem. Also tried this file on my daughter's Mac and had the same issues.  I have Mac Sierra Ver 10.12.4.  HELP!

[andersenmobilenotary]

Did you ever figure this out? I see no Adobe help for Mac/Brother users. Lots of questions though but no answers and it seems it has gone on for years. 

[swapnilsrivastava · Accepted solution]

Hi There,

Thanks for reporting the issue here.

We tried the exact same workflow at our end with MacBook, Brother Printer (PCL Driver), & Adobe Acrobat DC (latest) but the issue was not reproducible at our end. 

We tried a file with different page size(s) and selected "Choose paper source by PDF page size" from the Print Menu; and observed the differnce in page size on physical print outs.

Attached File : https://documentcloud.adobe.com/link/review?uri=urn:aaid:scds:US:f3e1f76d-7a13-402b-8cf7-1e3b21f9161... 

Please do let us know, if anything is requried from our end.

Regards,
Swapnil Srivastava

[andersenmobilenotary]

Sadly I did more investigating online and in this adobe community forum and found many with the same issue and no answers. And this issue has been around going back to 2016 apparently. I plugged in an old Windows 7 computer and magically it all works. I am being very sarcastic. I found this FIX by reading hundreds of people with the same issue. I would suggest clearly advertising that Adobes DOES NOT work with MAC and Brother printers. Period!

[andersenmobilenotary]

And let me add. I need to use the choose paper source option because I am printing letter and legal sizes from the same PDF just like all the other people that have reported the same exact problem. Adobe does nor have a fix for 4 years. So unless something has drastically changed and Adobe is able to suddenly have a fix that should have been done already due to the customer complaints then I will be using a different PDF opener with my MAC. I have wasted an entire day trying to figure this out.

[MBATF]

As a new LSS/LSA/NSA, I just purchased a Brother HL-L6200DWT and I too have the same problem with printing mixed size papers within the same PDF file when using with my MacBook Pro, MacBook Air and MacBook. Therefore I firmly believe something is off with Adobe's ability. ( worked fine with Windows)

note: before I updated the adobe reader, it was able to print mixed size papers BUT pages would get cut off. Then after updates, it will only print on either legal or letter size. The autodetext/autoselect within Adobe has definitely messed up.

[andersenmobilenotary]

Frustrating to say the least. Still no answers.

[besposito]

You are not able to recreate the issue because your test file has only two pages. Create a 100+ page test file with mixed letter and legal and you will be able to replicate the issue.

• I have a MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2016) running Catalina, Brother HL-L6200DWT printer and using Adobe Acrobat Reader DC 2020.009.20063. I have all of the settings set correctly per the Adobe: https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/kb/print-mixed-page-sizes-acrobat.html
• I contacted Brother support as well and followed the details found at : https://help.brother-usa.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/102267
• This included downloading and using the latest drivers from Brother. As instructed I tried both their CUPS driver and the BR-Script driver. 
• I have printed using both a direct USB cable and over WiFi.

When I print a large (100+) PDF file with mixed legal and letter it initially works for the first 10 or 20 pages but eventually the pages get cut off with legal pages being printed half way down the page and/or cut off. It is as though the data being sent to the printer eventually becomes "corrupted" so that it is unable to print correctly.

The only solution I have found is to run Windows on my Macbook Pro using VMWAre Fusion and printing from Windows to my printer. Doing this it works fine.

I would suggest creating a large test file and then try to replicate the issue. If you do you will see what everyone else is experiencing.

[besposito]

Brother support got back with me immediately. They confirmed the issue is with Adobe Reader on a Mac as the issue also occurs with other brands of printers.

The provided a workaround that appears to work:

WORKAROUND: Rotate the view of all of the pages by 180°, so it looks upside down on the screen.
Then print the document as usual, and all the pages should print completely. You cant do the rotate with the free version of Adobe Reader BUT you can open the PDF using Apple Preview, rotate the pages, save it and then re-open it in Adobe Reader for printing. This worked for me.

It would still be nice if Adobe could confirm the issue (using a larger test file than 2 pages) and fix the problem. I have attached a 21 page test.pdf using the same pages from the two page test file Adobe originally used. I am able to replicate the issue using this file everytime.

[MBATF]

I got it to work for 5200 and 6200.

makesure sure you select BR- Script 3  (not Air Print or any other ones.) with Mac OS.

now I can print between letter and legal size automatically.

[besposito]

I used the BR-Script 3 driver as well and it improved, but I still found that once I got beyond 20+ pages of a single mixed sized PDF that it began to have issues. The driver did not fix my problem.

Also note that this issue is not specific to Brother printers. I have read other posts with people with different brand printers experiencing the exact same issue.

[Felicia27691226yfx3]

Can you send a example?

[Felicia27691226yfx3]

Thats what is happening to me as well. I have a HL-L6200DWT running Ventura 13.1 IMac and the first 10 to twenty pages prints just fine in letter form and  right when its time to print legal it begins to print legal and cuts off the bottom half of the page. The only way to print legal is one by one and shrink oversize pages, but the fine print is too small to read. ****SEND HELP ADOBE!!!!!!!

[besposito]

Swapnil Srivastava - FIrst thanks for taking an interest in this issue and working to resolve it!

Have you tried replicating it using the test file I have attached here? It is the same as the one you provided accept with mine I created 21 mixed pages of the same legal and letter sizes. I have also attached a results file where I scanned back what the pages look like when I print the test file.

When I use the test file you provide that only has two pages it works fine everytime, but when I use my test file I can reproduce the error everytime.

Brother support provided a workaround of rotating all of the pages 180' so that they are upside down. When I do that wiht the 21 page test file it solves the problem. 

[Dan5CF6]

Bespocito - Just noticed that there is an additional BR-Script3 driver right after the 2 we "should be" using, called "Brother HL-L6202DW BR-Script3."   Given that there is no HL-L6202 model, I'm wondering if they just incremented the filename?  I've tested and it works for only 2 pages.  I didn't find your file example to test with and don't know how to make my own test doc w/o an acrobat license.

To save everyone else time/paper, the other driver settings fail completely.  ("Generic PCL Printer," "Brother HL-L6200DW series CUPS," nor the default setting of "Airprint")

For those illiterate to troubleshooting Mac printer drivers (NEVER thought I'd have to do that again since MacOS Tiger), the only way I've figured out how to change the driver is simply by deleting your printer and readding.  The driver can then be selected when choosing the print and modifying the last field below called "Use:" and click "Select Software."  You'll then see every driver that locally exists on your mac.  Make sure you've grabbed the latest drivers from Brother's website.

[Teri5FA5]

Even with downloading the script 3, it cuts off pages or starts in the middle of the page. When using full size vs fit ot shrink to fit. 

[besposito]

Try using Foxit PDF from Foxit software. It resolved my issues.

[conne00]

I tried using Foxit for a loan package and it kept on printing dual sided eventhough that option was not selected.

[Donald26021801qiss]

Yes I tried Foxit Pdf and can't believe it worked. Adobe better get off it's a## and fit it. I do hundreds of pages almost daily utilizing 3 printers and switched to a Mac for faster printing times until this issue popped up. Thanks so much now I'll keep my Mac. PS I'm also a Notary. 

[Felicia27691226yfx3]

So with option did you pick with Foxit Pdf?

[Nieda3650926928zz]

I have the exact same problem.  So what's the solution?

[Amal.]

Hi there

Hope youa re doing well and thanks for reaching out.

Have you tried the steps provided in the correct answer? Please give them a try and see if that works.

Also share the version of the OS and Acrobat DC you are using? To check the version go to Help > About Acrobat and make sure you have the recent version 24.01.20643 installed. Go to Help > Check for updates and reboot the computer once.
 
Also try to repair the installation from the help menu (Win Only) and see if that works.
 
Please try to reset the Acrobat preferences as described here https://adobe.ly/49zrTWt

Let us know how it goes.

~Amal

[rick38947146xri4]

As I was looking for solutions for similar issue because...it's still very much an issue. I'm trying to wrap my head around your reply in **Apr 2024:

"Also try to repair the installation from the help menu (Win Only) and see if that works"

to an issue **from 2017 regarding printing from a MAC

As I was looking for solutions