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8 min fix Updated 8 Aug 2026Intermediate

By , IT support technician

Quick Answer

First check whether other documents print — if they do not, the printer is the problem, not the PDF. If only this file fails, open it in Adobe Acrobat Reader, press Ctrl + P, click Advanced, tick Print As Image, and print again.

Fix a PDF That Won't Print Correctly ​

Applies to: Windows 10, Windows 11, Adobe Acrobat Reader, Microsoft Edge
Article Type: Troubleshooting
Last Updated: 2026-08-08

Summary ​

When one PDF prints blank, garbled, cropped or not at all while everything else prints fine, the problem is in the file or in how the reader hands it to the printer — not in the printer. This guide narrows it down in one minute and then walks the fixes in the order that resolves the most cases, starting with the one most people have never heard of.

Symptoms ​

  • Pages come out blank, or with black bars, scrambled characters and missing sections.
  • The text prints in the wrong font, or as boxes and symbols.
  • The edges of the page are cut off, or the whole page prints too small.
  • The job disappears from the queue with nothing coming out of the printer.
  • The same PDF prints correctly from a colleague's computer.
  • Print is greyed out or the printer list is empty when this file is open.

Before You Start ​

  • The PDF file saved on your computer, not open in a preview pane in Outlook or Teams.
  • Adobe Acrobat Reader or Microsoft Edge — both are free, and steps 2 and 3 use one each.
  • No admin rights are needed for anything in this guide.

Instructions ​

1. Check whether it is this PDF or every print job ​

Two minutes here saves you the rest of the article, because a printer that fails on everything needs a different fix entirely.

  1. Open Notepad, type test, and press Ctrl + P. Pick your usual printer and click Print.
  2. Watch what happens. If the test page prints normally, the printer is fine and the problem is this PDF — continue to step 2.
  3. If the test page also fails, blank, or never arrives, this is a printer problem and nothing in this article will fix it. Go to How to Fix Common Printer Issues (No Admin Required) and stop here.
  4. If the PDF prints correctly on a colleague's computer, that also points at the reader on your machine rather than the file — steps 2, 3 and 8 are the ones that apply.

2. Print the PDF as an image ​

This is the single most effective fix for garbled, blank or half-drawn pages, and it is buried two dialogs deep in Adobe Acrobat Reader.

  1. Open the PDF in Adobe Acrobat Reader and press Ctrl + P. The Print dialog opens.
  2. Click Advanced near the bottom-left of the dialog. The Advanced Print Setup window opens on top of it.
  3. Tick Print As Image and click OK. The window closes and you are back in the Print dialog.
  4. Click Print. The job takes noticeably longer to start than usual — that is the reader converting each page to a picture before sending it, and it is the reason this works.
  5. Check the output. Pages that were scrambled now come out clean.

The trade-off is real, so use this when you need the page rather than as a default: the printer receives a picture of each page instead of drawing instructions, which makes the job much larger, slower, and slightly softer on very small text. If you combine it with Microsoft Print to PDF to build a new file, that file's text stops being selectable or searchable.

3. Open the file in a different PDF reader ​

A file that defeats one reader very often prints straight out of another, because each one interprets the page differently.

  1. Right-click the PDF in File Explorer, choose Open with, and select Microsoft Edge. The file opens in a browser tab.
  2. Press Ctrl + P. Edge's own print dialog opens with a live preview on the right — check the preview before printing, because it usually shows the same fault the paper would.
  3. Click Print. If it comes out correctly, you have your answer: keep using Edge for this file.
  4. If Edge was where it failed, run this in the other direction — open the file in Adobe Acrobat Reader and print from there.

Changing the reader for one file changes nothing permanently. To change which app opens PDFs from now on, see How to Open PDFs and Office Files in Desktop Apps Instead of the Browser.

4. Fix cropped edges and pages that print too small ​

When the content is correct but the edges are missing or everything sits in the middle of the sheet, the scaling setting is doing it.

  1. With the PDF open, press Ctrl + P to open the Print dialog.
  2. Find the Page Sizing & Handling group in Acrobat Reader, or the Scale dropdown in Edge.
  3. Choose Fit to shrink the page until all of it lands on the paper. Use this when the edges are being cut off.
  4. Choose Actual size when a page prints smaller than it should. This prints at the size the document was designed at, so a page larger than your paper will lose its edges — pair it with a larger paper size under Page Setup if that happens.
  5. Watch the preview thumbnail as you switch between them. The change is visible there before you commit any paper.
  6. Accept that a thin strip at the very edge cannot print at all. Every printer has an unprintable margin of a few millimeters, so a document designed edge to edge always needs Fit.

5. Rebuild a file that arrived damaged ​

A PDF that was interrupted mid-download or mid-copy often opens well enough to read and still fails at the printer.

  1. Download or copy the file again from wherever it came from, and save it under a new name such as contract-v2.pdf. Keeping the original means you can compare the two if the new copy behaves differently.
  2. Compare the file sizes in File Explorer. A partial download is usually visibly smaller than the full file.
  3. If the file only exists as an email attachment, save it to your computer first and print from there. Printing straight out of the Outlook reading pane goes through a preview handler, not the real reader, and that path fails on files the reader handles fine.
  4. If you still have the fresh copy failing, rebuild it: open the file, press Ctrl + P, set Printer to Microsoft Print to PDF, and click Print to save a new PDF. Print that new file instead. This writes a new file and leaves the original untouched — see How to Save or Print Any Document as a PDF for the full walkthrough.

6. Check whether the PDF itself blocks printing ​

Some PDFs carry restrictions that stop printing on purpose, and no amount of troubleshooting on your side will move them.

  1. Open the PDF in Adobe Acrobat Reader, then open File > Properties. The Document Properties window opens.
  2. Click the Security tab. The Document Restrictions Summary at the bottom lists each action as Allowed or Not Allowed.
  3. Read the Printing row. If it says Not Allowed, or says Low Resolution, the document's author set that deliberately.
  4. Look at the title bar too. The word (SECURED) after the filename means restrictions are in force.
  5. Ask the person who sent the file for a version without the printing restriction, or for the password that unlocks it. This is the document's own setting, not a fault on your computer, and working around it defeats a control someone applied on purpose. If the file came from your own organization and carries a sensitivity label, the restriction may be company policy — How to Use Sensitivity Labels in Microsoft 365 explains which controls those apply.

7. Print a large PDF in smaller batches ​

A 400-page scanned document or a file full of high-resolution photographs can exhaust the printer's memory partway through and stop.

  1. Note where the output stopped. A job that dies at the same page every time is a size problem rather than a file problem.
  2. Press Ctrl + P, and in the Pages box type a range such as 1-25.
  3. Click Print and let that batch finish completely before starting the next range. Each batch is a separate, smaller job the printer can hold.
  4. Combine this with Print As Image from step 2 if batches still fail — it removes the complex drawing instructions that use the most printer memory.

8. Update Adobe Acrobat Reader ​

An out-of-date reader and a newer printer driver disagree about how to describe a page, and the reader is the side you can update yourself.

  1. Open Adobe Acrobat Reader and go to Help > Check for Updates. A small updater window opens.
  2. Install anything it offers and restart the app when it asks. Your files, settings and saved signatures are untouched by an update.
  3. Print the PDF again.
  4. If the updater reports that updates are managed by your organization, ask IT to push the current Acrobat Reader update to your machine, and include the version you are on — it is on the Help > About Adobe Acrobat Reader screen.

Troubleshooting ​

TIP

If you take one thing from this page, take Print As Image in step 2. It is the fix for the majority of garbled, blank and partially-drawn PDF pages, it needs no admin rights, and most people never find it because it lives behind the Advanced button in the print dialog.

Symptom / ErrorPotential CauseSolution
Pages print blank, or with black bars and scrambled charactersThe reader is sending drawing instructions the printer cannot followUse Print As Image — step 2.
Text prints as boxes, symbols or the wrong typefaceA font in the document is not embedded and not installed locallyUse Print As Image — step 2. It sends the letters as a picture, so the printer never needs the font.
The edges of every page are cut offScaling is set to Actual size on a page bigger than the paperSwitch to Fit — step 4.
Nothing reaches the printer and the job vanishes from the queueThe file is damaged, or the job is too big for the printer's memoryRebuild the file — step 5 — then print in batches — step 7.
Print is greyed out, or the title bar shows (SECURED)The document's author restricted printingCheck File > Properties > Security — step 6 — and ask the sender for an unrestricted copy.
The PDF prints fine from a colleague's computer but not yoursYour reader or its update state differs from theirsPrint from Edge instead — step 3 — then update Acrobat Reader — step 8.
Only PDFs from one website print badlyThe site generates PDFs your reader renders poorlyOpen the file in the other reader — step 3 — and print from whichever one draws it correctly.
Colours or shading print as heavy black blocksTransparency in the document is being flattened badlyUse Print As Image — step 2 — which renders the page before it reaches the printer.