6 Replies Latest reply: Jul 24, 2009 12:05 PM by KStreetStudio RSS

    Printing to Acrobat = no images!???

    KStreetStudio Community Member

      I writing my own software that does a bunch of stuff for a lab, and one thing it needs to do is print a two page report.  Page 2 has two bitmaps on it.  I can print (on paper) to a number of printers, HP LaserJets and inkjets, with no problems, but when I try printing to Acrobat, to create PDF files (obviously), the two bimaps don't print.  Well, sometimes they don't print, or maybe only one of them prints.  But this doesn't ever happen on my other printers.  I can create PDF files using a SmartDraw PDF FIlter, something that came with a flowcharting program I bought last year, and it works fine.  But, again, Acrobat doesn't.

       

      One other thing, I've been dealing with this for a while, and in earlier versions of Acrobat, v5 I think, it didn't work, then an update came along and it started working, then another update came along and it quit working...

       

      Recently I've started trying out programming tools from other authors, things that promise to streamline my prinngint, and they do, but the bitmap printing problem is still with me.

       

      Given that my program works well and consistenlty for other printers, and I'm not doing anything special regarding how I call Windows' printer functions, and for that PDF filter, what's up with Acrobat and how do I fix it.

       

      By the way, my bitmaps are 2400x1800 images, and they are bitmaps, not tiff or jpeg.  They print at about 7.5" wide and 4" or so high, so I think my file size is about right for getting good results, about 320 ppi.

       

      Finally, for the image prining itself, I've used DrawBitmap and StretchBitMap (I'm programming in Delphi, but these are probably familiar to those using other languages) which both use DIB when printing.  DrawBitmap printed the images sometimes, StretchBitmap never.  I'll try using StretchGraphic today and I'll see if reducing the sizes of the images helps.  But, I doubt image size will matter because in the past even 640x480 images had problems printing.

       

      Thanks.

        • 1. Re: Printing to Acrobat = no images!???
          lrosenth Adobe Employee

          What version of Adobe Acrobat do you have installed?

           

          Do you mean you are printing to the Adobe PDF Printer?  What Options do you have selected?

           

          How is your application interacting with the PDF printer?

          • 2. Re: Printing to Acrobat = no images!???
            KStreetStudio Community Member

            I've got version 9.1.1.

             

            Updates are ready but the last one messed up my copy of Adobe Premeiere CS4 and it took me a couple of days to get that sorted out.  Until I finish the current video project I'm holding off on all Adobe updates.

             

            And yes, I am printing using Adobe PDF, using the default settings.

             

            I'm not seeing any errors at all.  Acrobat seems to take what I send it OK but somewhere along the lines either doesn't receive the bitmaps or it ignores them.  Isn't there a logging featre in Acrobat somewhere.  Maybe that was Distiller.

            • 3. Re: Printing to Acrobat = no images!???
              lrosenth Adobe Employee

              What if you print manually instead of programmatically?

              • 4. Re: Printing to Acrobat = no images!???
                KStreetStudio Community Member

                Manually?

                 

                My program just uses standard Delphi and Windows functions to print.  By print, I mean when I want to create a PDF file I print to Adobe PDF, same as I do with all the other programs on my PC.  I'm not using and Adobe SDK routines.

                 

                Like I wrote initally, I can print fine to several other printers, but not to Acrobat to create PDF files, and in the past Acrobat has sometimes worked and sometimes not worked, depending on the update.  SmartDraw's PDF filter works, but that software is not on a lot of people's systems.  I may contact them to see if I can find out what they are doing differently.

                 

                Also, I have all kinds of error trapping around the bit of code that creates the bitmaps and sends them to the printer, all part of trying to figure out what is going wrong.  No errors are reported either by my program or Adobe PDF.  I even went as far as, during the print process, to copy the bitmaps to the clipboard so I could see exactly what Adobe PDF is getting.  I then pasted them into Photoshop.  The images look fine.

                • 5. Re: Printing to Acrobat = no images!???
                  lrosenth Adobe Employee

                  It's impossible to know what is going on short of having your code and tracing through it...

                   

                  Best I can suggest is that unlike other drivers, Adobe's PDF Printer is a Postscript-based solution.  Can you try printing to a native Postscript printer from your application to see what happens?   Or what if you print to a file and then run the Postscript manually through Distiller?

                  • 6. Re: Printing to Acrobat = no images!???
                    KStreetStudio Community Member

                    Well, it looks like I do have problems printing to Postscript printers, so it probably isn't just a Acrobat issue.

                     

                    As far as printing the bitmaps themselves, the code is one line using the DrawBitmap or StretchBitmap command I noted in my original post.