Adobe Reader XI won't print PDF's in color

Report · Oct 24, 2012

I recently built 4 new PC's for my office. They all have Windows 7 64 bit, and are all networked to the same Canon Copy machine. They all print Office documents just fine, in color or black and white as needed. And all but one of them print PDF's just fine as well. However, one of the PC's is only printing in black and white, even when we change the settings to color and even when the preview pane shows the document in color. Gray scale is not checked. I was able to get documents to print in color, but I had to change the "objectives" setting from "General" to "Publication". What I'm wondering is, is there a way to change the settings on this computer so that "General" objectives print in color, or so that the default objective is set to "publication" . Please advise.

Report · Oct 24, 2012

Try deleting and re-installing the printer driver.

Report · Oct 25, 2012

Please note that this is not an Adobe Reader/Acrobat issue. The settings done at driver's end are never reflected on the preview of Adobe Reader Print dialog.

Basically, your printer settiing was set to "General" and changing this to "publication" did resolve the problem. It seems "General" is set as default setting for the driver. This is not related to Adobe Reader. However, you may wish to change this setting to "publication" by performing the following steps:

1) Go to "Devices and Printers" on your machine.

2) Right click on the printer in question.

3) Access the printer preferences and set the settings as per your requirements.

4) Press OK.

5) The new settings are no the default setting for your printer.

Now, Adobe Reader would always point to the settings as set by you at the driver's end.

Thanks,

Atul

Report · Oct 25, 2012

Thanks for both responses. What is curious about the "general" setting is that on the 3 other computers I built, they too are defaulted to "General", and yet, they print pdf's in color without any issue. It puzzles me because the exact same driver, Windows version, and Reader version are installed on all 4 computers. Even this motherboard is identical to another one of the builds, with the same Bios version.

On a side note, I did go into default settings of the printer and changed to "publication" mode, and that gives me the fix I needed. I am worried though that long term, publication might use more ink to print, and given the potential load that computer will need, it could be a cost we won't realize down the road. Of course, it may be insignificant at the same time. I always like to figure out problems, even if I find a workaround. I just don't know why the program would behave this way out of the blue.

Report · Oct 25, 2012

Please be assured that I have not shared the workaround with you but I have tried to explain the reason why one of your machine is working different than the other three. Even if, you have to se the "General" as default then it is all okay. It is just that you have to set the "publication" again from printer properties dialog from with in the Adobe Reader because you are over riding a default setting and hence there is nothing wrong in that.

Thanks,

Atul

Report · Dec 26, 2012

I'm having a similar issue that I can't seem to fix. To any staff member: why are you not sharing the workaround?
I'm printing to a Xerox printer and there are no "General" or "Publication" style options in the printer preferences, nor are there any options to choose color or b&w. How can I get Adobe XI to give me the option to print in color (a neccesity)?

Report · Mar 08, 2018

This is an Adobe Issue. It's the only program that has this problem.

Report · Sep 25, 2013

I had the same problem with color (an old HP OJ6110). Only Adobe Reader XI would not print in color. I found in the print dialog an Advanced button (next to the Properties button). Clicking on it brought up an Advanced Print Setup dialog. Therein I selected 'Let printer determine colors'. Clicking OK brought me back to the Print dialog where the displayed page image promptly changed to color. Hope this works for you!

Report · Apr 20, 2015

Thanks to the previous post by KCoons, I figured out how to fix a similar issue.

MY SITUATION: I was printing thousands of concert flyers to a fairly modern Ricoh printer, and I noticed that even though the source document was B&W, Adobe was printing the greyscale as dots of color, seriously depleting my color toner. I had to play around with the settings to get Acrobat Pro to print it in true B&W, using only black toner.

Later on, I discovered Acrobat would not print ANYTHING in color, while other programs had no problem with color.

THE SOLUTION: This is not exactly the same as the one posted above, which is why I am posting this as a possible alternative for users with a similar problem...

In the PRINT dialog, click on the ADVANCED button to the right of the printer selection field.

In the ADVANCED PRINT SETUP dialog, in the selection field just above the print image, click on COLOR MANAGEMENT.

On the right side, under Color Management, for COLOR HANDLING, select "Printer Color Management."

This solved the problem for me. Now I can print in color again. And it was indeed an ADOBE setting, not a printer setting.

Report · Jun 12, 2015

dpm39560's solution fixed it for me.

dpm39560 wrote:

Thanks to the previous post by KCoons, I figured out how to fix a similar issue.

MY SITUATION: I was printing thousands of concert flyers to a fairly modern Ricoh printer, and I noticed that even though the source document was B&W, Adobe was printing the greyscale as dots of color, seriously depleting my color toner. I had to play around with the settings to get Acrobat Pro to print it in true B&W, using only black toner.

Later on, I discovered Acrobat would not print ANYTHING in color, while other programs had no problem with color.

THE SOLUTION: This is not exactly the same as the one posted above, which is why I am posting this as a possible alternative for users with a similar problem...

In the PRINT dialog, click on the ADVANCED button to the right of the printer selection field.

In the ADVANCED PRINT SETUP dialog, in the selection field just above the print image, click on COLOR MANAGEMENT.

On the right side, under Color Management, for COLOR HANDLING, select "Printer Color Management."

This solved the problem for me. Now I can print in color again. And it was indeed an ADOBE setting, not a printer setting.

As he said "it was indeed an ADOBE setting" that fixed the problem with me. Thanks, dpm39560!

Report · Aug 14, 2017

I had trouble printing color from Adobe XI to an HP Officejet 8600. At first I found that in my PRINTER preferences in Layout/Advanced/Printer Features, I had the option to "Print In Grayscale" set to "High Quality Grayscale." I thought that option would only come into play when printing black and white only. Not so. I set that to "Off" and then the Officejet 8600 would print color from Adobe XI. But only the colors Red, Cyan and Black! It would not print Yellow. Weird. So then in the print dialogue of Adobe XI I went to the "Advanced" tab and then set "Color Management" to "Let Printer Determine Colors" and that STILL did not work. So at last in the print dialogue in the "Advanced" tab I checked the option to "Print as Image" and that worked finally. The HP Officejet 8600 will print all colors from Adobe XI with "Print As Image" selected in the Advanced tab of the Adobe print dialogue.