Trouble printing Illustrator PDF

[JPeazy]

I have been attempting to print a mostly text 10 page document from both Illustrator and Adobe Acrobat. Each time, it would print a half of line of text or maybe 1.5 lines of text from one page before 'finishing' printing. I was able to print PDF documents from Acrobat, just not Illustrator documents. I did all the trouble shooting with the printer. Then tried an uninstall an reinstall of Illustrator an still have not had any luck.

I was able to open the PDF in photoshop and print from there, but that is not really a great workaround long term.

I have never ha this problem before. Any help would be great!

[Monika Gause]

Which version of Illustrator?

Which system?

Do you use font management?

Is the font technically OK? Really? 150%?

Or is it a Google font?

Which printer is it?

Is that a PDF you are opening?

Or is it an Illustrator document?

Illustrator is not a general purpose PDF editor and bad things might happen when you import a PDF.

[JPeazy]

Which version of Illustrator? The newest, I have the subscription so it is alway up to date.

Which system? Windows (also up to date)

Do you use font management? no..please explain

Is the font technically OK? Really? 150%? yes, I have used these exact fonts before with no issues and printed with no issues as well.

Or is it a Google font? They might be, but I cannot recall off the top of my head (if they are, they are installed on my computer)...but again, have used them countless times before with no issues. I did covert the text to vectors and that seemed to 'fix' the issue..but I am still unsure of what this was an issue in the first place...because again..this has never happened before. I also used the same font in a word document an was able to print it no problem. I thought maybe it was the pdf, so I saved the file as an AI file...did the same thing.

Which printer is it? HP 3830

Is that a PDF you are opening? It is a file I made in illustrator and saved as a pdf to send to others to review..then just wanted to print...I thought maybe the file was corrputed so I copied the file into a new document and tried to print both before saving an after...same issue...I tried printing another illustrator pdf..same thing ...then I tried printing a PDF that wasn't created in Illustrator...and it worked fine.

Or is it an Illustrator document? see above.

Illustrator is not a general purpose PDF editor and bad things might happen when you import a PDF. Did not import a PDF, created the file in Illustrator

[Met1]

>I did covert the text to vectors and that seemed to 'fix' the issue..

That's a font issue. GIGO.

>I was able to print PDF documents from Acrobat

That's a postscript issue - is your printer postscript compatible?

[JPeazy]

It has never been an issue before, I have printed using these fonts countless amounts of times...

I am also able to print using the same fonts from Word...

[Met1]

I'm pretty sure Word isn't a postscript reliant app.

[Mike_Gondek]

What happens if you oultine the font on all pages, will it print?

[JPeazy]

Yes. Which I get, but I guess I just am confused why this has never been an issue before, but is now.

[Met1]

Did you recently update Illy?

[JPeazy]

No...I even did try and uninstall and reinstall of it as well to see if that would fix the problem...but it didn't.

[Monika Gause]

Yes. Which I get, but I guess I just am confused why this has never been an issue before, but is now.

By @JPeazy

Fonts are used by your system. That can just make them go corrupt.

Or they can be somewhat not functioning from the start, but previous versions of the system could somewhat make them work.

Software is not carved in stone. What used to work can also stop at any time.

Dig out the original version of the font (you have a backup copy, right) and re-install that font and see if it works.

[Bobby Henderson]

In addition to the tips provided by others I would recommend doing this: see if there are any updates for the font files you are using. Also watch out for other open applications possibly affecting Illustrator or Acrobat. 

I'm not sure why, but in recent years I've been seeing more in the way of technical issues regarding fonts. Some of the problems are bugs within the font files. Modern digital typefaces are more complex and ambitious than fonts from 30 years ago. Modern type families are often boasting more styles, larger character sets, more typographical features and new technologies like OTF Variable and OTF SVG. All those new features also equal greater potential for more bugs. It is common for vendors who sell digital type to offer free updates. I check my own account at MyFonts from time to time to see if there are updates to any of my purchases. Some sites that host free/open-source fonts (such as Google Fonts, FontSquirrel, etc) also update their font files. It's a little harder to tell if a type family at those sites has been updated. Usually if I'm having a technical problem with something from Google Fonts I'll uninstall/delete the fonts and then go download what might hopefully be a newer version.

Some applications are buggy with how they handle fonts. Font management software can introduce an additional level of technical problems. For instance, I've had to work around type-related bugs in CorelDRAW and its font manager software for a couple or so years. Some type families don't load correctly. Bugs include italic styles being replaced with upright styles in the same family or vice versa. These same type families work correctly in other applications. Some were purchased and some were synced via Adobe Fonts. If CorelDRAW is running it can make some of the fonts in a large font family disappear from other applications like Illustrator. If I launch Illustrator without CorelDRAW running all the fonts installed in the OS will load correctly.