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eskce
eskce
Participating Frequently
October 27, 2023
Answered

Postscript driver problem for Brother printer: prints are bitmapped, pixelated, jagged

  • October 27, 2023
  • 4 replies
  • 4294 views

Hello,

 

I saw similar posts in the community but was not able to solve the issue even after contacting Adobe support + Brother Support + Apple Support (all of them referred me to each other at the end and no one seems to know the issue). I guess posting here is my last resort before I decide to change this printer.

 

I'm running InDesign 2023 on MacOS 14 Sonoma / Apple M1 machine. I recently purchased a B&W high DPI Brother printer MFCL2710DW. I installed the printer as required using "printers & scanners" and let Apple download the correct driver for the device, which it did. The printer functions well. Brother website and Apple does not offer an alternative driver for this particular machine.

 

While using the printer to print from applications such as Notepad or Drawbot, the prints come out pretty sharp and satisfactory. Even when I create a PDF from these sources, the print quality is superb. 

 

However when I work in any Adobe applications (illustrator/indesign/acrobat), the printing quality drops terribly. Everything comes out pixilated and bitmapped. Even the PDFs I exported from InDesign do not print well.

 

My initial instinct was to play around with color profiles and printing options to solve the issue. I thought that the printer must be expecting RGB and I'm working in CMYK. I think I played with every setting available to me (color management settings, printer settings,  output, graphics etc.) I had no luck. There is a "print as bitmap" option which when I uncheck, it automatically checks itself back again when you click anywhere else (I saw this as a bug reported in another post).

 

My second instinct was to investigate the differences between a PDF that was generated from Drawbot (which prints good) and InDesign (which prints poorly). I wanted to locate the differences and see if I can convert the InDesign generated PDF to the properties of the Drawbot generated ones. I wasn't able to achieve this as well. I'm happy to upload both tests here if anyone wants to give it a try, just for kicks. Although it is not a sustainable solution for the long term.

 

Talking to Apple/Brother/Adobe support, they have identified the issue as a Postscript driver missing for my printer model for Sonoma. No one had a solution other than blaming the other party. I was wondering if anyone has a solution for this. Maybe I'm missing something. Is there any way I can get crisp prints from this device via Adobe programs?

 

Thank you for your support

    Correct answer jmckl

    Update: after speaking with Brother and Adobe, it's been determined that Adobe apps in Sonoma require a Generic Postscript Driver for printers to function correctly. This is not supported in my Brother printer, and they have no plans to add support. So, I will be choosing my next printer after carefully confirming that it supports a Generic Postscript Driver.

    4 replies

    J
    jmcklCorrect answer
    New Participant
    November 2, 2023

    Update: after speaking with Brother and Adobe, it's been determined that Adobe apps in Sonoma require a Generic Postscript Driver for printers to function correctly. This is not supported in my Brother printer, and they have no plans to add support. So, I will be choosing my next printer after carefully confirming that it supports a Generic Postscript Driver.

      eskce
      eskceAuthor
      Participating Frequently
      November 2, 2023

      Thank you for the information. I've been talking to Apple and Brother as well and its been a constant blame game between parties. But I've reached a similar conclusion to yours.

       

      Any advice on how to check/confirm if a printer supports the Generic Postscript Driver? Officially the Brother Printer is "supported by Mac" and "comes with a Post Script Emulator (BR-driver)". But it took me a long time to discover that the BR driver only works on Windows.  

        B
        Bobby Henderson
        Braniac
        October 31, 2023

        It sounds to me like the printer may have limited capabilities at printing directly from Adobe applications like Illustrator and InDesign or printing PDF files created by those applications. Brother needs to update their stuff. This seems like a fairly common problem. Not all printers can process the latest visual bells and whistles Illustrator and InDesign can create or store in a PDF. It can require the printer (or RIP application) to have an Adobe-certified PDF engine that is up to date. Our office laser printer stinks at printing artwork with transparency effects or combinations of objects with clipping masks and transparency. Yucky discolored box syndrome can be visible on the printed pages. The same layouts come out of a large format printer looking perfect.

        J
        jmckl
        New Participant
        October 31, 2023

        Not trying to do anything fancy -- just printing text. I even went out and bought a brand new printer and had the same issue. Seems to me that it's the Adobe software, since I'm able to print correctly from Apple-based apps.

          Monika Gause
          Monika Gause
          Braniac
          October 27, 2023

          Usually printing a PDF from Acrobat should work. 

           

          Can you please upload a photo of one of your results?

          eskce
          eskceAuthor
          Participating Frequently
          October 27, 2023

          Hello, of course. Printing from Acrobat still preserves the bitmap quality. As I stated above, there is a bit of an improvement but it looks like a text rendering to image conversion thing. The notepad print is far superior quality.

           

          Thank you!

           

           

            J
            jmckl
            New Participant
            October 30, 2023

            I'm having the exact same issue. I've reached out to Adobe, Brother, and Apple. Apple researched the issue and discovered that Adobe has its own rendering engine for sending postscript to printers, and there are some known issues about that being supported in Sonoma. This seems to be related -- hopefully Adobe can update Creative Cloud and provide full support for printers in Sonoma.

            eskce
            eskceAuthor
            Participating Frequently
            October 27, 2023

            ++Wanted to post this under InDesign thread but I don't have edit access since this is my first post.

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