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

[eskce]

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

[eskce]

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

[Monika Gause]

Usually printing a PDF from Acrobat should work. 

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

[eskce]

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!

[jmckl]

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.

[Monika Gause]

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@jmckl  schrieb:

 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. 

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Not that it surprises me that Apple discovers something after the fact. And that it doesn't care about what people are using their devices for. But here we are. 

[eskce]

The irony is that when I first setup this printer I was on a much earlier OS. And I still had these same issues. In fact, I updated to Sonoma just to see if it would fix these issues. Looking back, maybe not the smartest move on my end.

[Bobby Henderson]

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.

[jmckl]

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.

[jmckl · Accepted solution]

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]

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.  

[Matthew A]

Sorry to hear about your problesm — I just bought (brand new today) A Brother HL-L2400DW — and the text quality from Indesign is dire!! Very pixely, and I am unable to un-check the 'print as bitmap' setting...

All in all this is seriously janky driver software. At my work I have an old Konica Minolta that works fine... but is huge...


Anyone come across a decent, small, bw laser printer that has good Postscript / Adobe CC support?

Any tips much appreciated 

[Bobby Henderson]

In order to accurately print artwork from current era versions of Illustrator a printer really needs the ability to handle PDF data natively. Usually the printer's driver would embed Adobe's PDF Print Engine. I don't know if that's something one can get from a black and white laser printer that costs less than $150.

Postscript is primitive compared to PDF. One major limitation of Postscript is it doesn't support transparency. All kinds of other issues can occur when printing PDF-based artwork on printers that have to emulate the content. Yucky Discolored Box Syndrome can appear on art elements contained in clipping paths.

A printer that has to rasterize type objects at a coarse, visibly pixelated level must have some serious limitations or bugs in its driver.

[Matthew A]

Thanks @Bobby Henderson  — good info... So... is there anything I am looking for spec.-wise? I am sending back the Brother printer I just bought and replacing it with soemthing that will play nice with CC — hopefully! Any manufacturers / models to keep in mind?

[Bobby Henderson]

I couldn't tell you right off hand about specific consumer printer models. Under specs they may list Adobe PDF Print Engine or the APPE acronym. You'll more likely find the capability in full color printers. I'm not seeing much in the way of clear details (in terms of specific printer models) just by doing some quick web searching on the topic.

I'm mainly familiar with the Adobe PDF Print Engine as it relates to large format printing and the RIP applications that are used to control the printers.

[jmckl]

FWIW,  I'm still using my Brother printer. My workaround is to export a pdf and print from Preview. The printing is fine, and it's a small step that I don't think about anymore.
My understanding is that Adobe apps on recent Mac OS require a generic postscript driver. I'm not sure how you find out which printers support that... 

[eskce]

That actually does not fix the quality (although yes it improves a bit). You can see the results of my test on the attachment of my comment dated October 27 above.

[Bobby Henderson]

Have you tried printing the PDF from Adobe Acrobat DC? The app might do a better job emulating PDF content to the printer.

[Matthew A]

Heres a pic from the Brother printer I received today... nasty.

Im sending this back, on the hunt for something better... even [priting form PDF or text edit isnt really good enough for checking typesetting / page design.

Brother HL-L2400DW print sample from Indesign — visibly pixelated type UGH!

[eskce]

Yes, exactly the same with my printer. Very sad—Almost all HP printers seem to come loaded with the PostScript driver which is what you need to look out for from what I learned.

[Bobby Henderson]

What point size is the text in that printed sample? What is the DPI rating of the laser printer? To get nicely sharp printed text at small point sizes it's often necessary for a laser printer to be able to output at 1200dpi or better. A printer that renders text at 600dpi or lower (such as 300dpi) isn't going to do so well, even if it can handle PDF-based content natively.

[Matthew A]

Heres a shot of 14pt Sabon (from Indesign) next to 14pt Caslon (from Text Edit, lower section) — you can see here its clearly the Indesign text rendering that suffers. With plain text using native OSX software the printing is OK. 

The Brother supposedly prints 'up to 1200x1200 dpi' 

This issue is definitely software / driver related. Im lookig for a printer that has true Adobe Postscript support on OSX — not emulation! 

Indesign output at the top, Textedit below...