PDF documents posted on my website not printing remotely

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I am the webmaster of http://www.edfas.co.uk, the website for Edinburgh Decorative & Fine Arts Society. We post the flyers for our events on this website as PDF documents, with links from the webpages to these docs. Members wanting to participate in our events can print them off and mail these to the event organiser. Some of our members report being unable to print these PDF docs on their machines.

As our membership is mostly senior, and not highly computer-literate, I cannot assume a high level of computer skills, or the ability to recover from problems or to find the sort of workarounds that most WS Loungers have. I take a lot of trouble to test my webpages to make certain that they are browser-neutral. I have to assume that they use the browser that came pre-installed on their machine, and that the majority uses Adobe Reader. I cannot assume that they are all up to the moment with the latest versions of their browsers or PDF readers, and I certainly cannot direct them to change browser or PDF reader to just to solve this sort of problem.

Any ideas on why PDFs are not printing remotely?

Dell E5570 Latitude, Intel Core i5 6440@2.60 GHz, 8.00 GB - Win 10 Pro

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A very attractive site I must say. I had no difficulty with any of the links, and I tried them all, but it did ask for an add-in called Webroker, which I disallowed, and which may or may not be the source of the trouble. I should add that I have the benefit of using the full Acrobat 11, which I believe came out today, or at least which I downloaded and installed today, so your mileage may vary.

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Dogberry – many thanks for taking a look. I am concerned that you found that the site called for an add-in called Webroker; I would also disallow. This is not in my code, and I should appreciate it if you could say which link called for it. I have not found any point where this add-in is called for.

Dell E5570 Latitude, Intel Core i5 6440@2.60 GHz, 8.00 GB - Win 10 Pro

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The PDF’s also open properly using PDF-Xchange Viewer. I would suspect something has happened to your member’s PC’s that is preventing them opening the flyers and/or printing the PDF file. Most PDF Readers have a browser plug-in to allow a browser to open PDF flyers. These PDF Readers have printing capabilities. The most well known of these readers is Adobe Reader as you mention.

Without checking each PC separately there may not be an easy answer to this. I really believe the problems are on their end, not yours.

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I also did not find a link that wanted me to add Webroker. I checked many links, but not all links. I tried to check a variety of different type links.

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I think I know the answer. When I previously viewed the site it was from a Wi-Fi hotspot (having just downloaded my new Acrobat XI Pro) and the mystery permission request was there, but it does not appear when I view the site from my home computer. Starbucks, j’accuse. Incidentally, it was a fairly slow connection with varying signal strength which does not have much appeal as a download site, although it’s dandy if you just want to putter and compute offline or on, since they do have electrical outlets.

I admit, your site is giving me itchy feet.

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Thanks, I was worried that there was something in the site that I did not know about!

Dell E5570 Latitude, Intel Core i5 6440@2.60 GHz, 8.00 GB - Win 10 Pro

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I think that I may have made some progress. There are many reports, going back over many years (5+), and many versions of both Adobe Reader and of Firefox, of PDF printing problems, uniquely, in Firefox. More fingers point at Adobe than at Firefox as the cause of this problem, though I have noted that this behaviour is unique to FF amongst the five major browsers. Pressing on the print toolbar button, or on the FF Start button (orange, top left) > Print does nothing, and Start > Print Preview shows a blank page. Ctrl-P brings up a print window (as it does in all five major browsers), as does the ghostly grey floating toolbar in Adobe Reader, but these are Adobe, not FF, print windows. I note some comment that Firefox MAY fix this in FF 18, but I’m not holding my breath.

Dell E5570 Latitude, Intel Core i5 6440@2.60 GHz, 8.00 GB - Win 10 Pro

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You could always have them try a different PDF Reader such as PDF-Xchange Viewer or Foxit Reader.

The bottom line is probably their systems have different versions of FF and Adobe Reader installed at different times, and the PC’s haven’t been cleaned up in years. Without some work by a competent PC tech, the problems may not be repairable by novice users.

At least you can be pretty confident your site is not at fault.

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I have experienced the same problem on several websites with Firefox 16.0.2 and Adobe: trying to print a PDF page results in no action or error message. My recourse is either to switch to IE to do the printing or to download the page and print it offline.

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Certainly a busy society!

I notice the site includes a link to download Adobe Reader. As the problem appears to be related to FF and Adobe, it might be worthwhile to provide a link to Foxit as well, bearing in mind that your membership is elderly and you doubt their ability to do any maintenance on their PCs.

ps. make Foxit the recommended download.

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Georgelee – a good idea, thanks

Dell E5570 Latitude, Intel Core i5 6440@2.60 GHz, 8.00 GB - Win 10 Pro

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Using Firefox 16.0.2 and Adobe Reader 10.1.4 I had no problems printing from Firefox; clicking print brought up the dialog with no issues and I had no issue with printing pages from Reader to my printer.

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