PDF printing from AQA, or not.

[theeldergeek]

Our Exams Officer is having a problem printing PDF's that I just cannot answer. What happens is, she has to go to the AQA website and open several series of PDF's, roughly 4 in each series, but directly from the site*, not opened, saved as etc etc.

 

She can then print, say the first 3 in the series once they've each opened, but the last one will only ever print 2 pages and then causes her printer to error.

 

This happens on every series of PDF's she is opening; it's always the last file that will not print. It also isn't the same file in each of the series; each series has it's own set of files. The first few print, but it is always the last one that will not.

 

Her printer is a local HP1350 USB, but we also tried printing to a mahoosive network Ricoh in the Bursary, with the same problem!

 

She logged onto my machine as me, logged into the AQA web site as her, and printed all her PDF's to my very old networked HP without issue!

 

She also got onto AQA technical 'sport, and they were able to log in as her, and print the files that wouldn't print to their own printer. That, in my opinion rules out the files as being a problem.

 

It has to be something on her machine that is causing the problem, but what? Why can she print 3 of 4 (for example), but not complete the 4th?

 

Anyone?

 

 

*Rules are that they are not allowed to 'download' the PDF's per se (even though it is probably cached somewhere locally anyway!) so I can't get hold of the file to test it independently on different machines.

[Domino]

Is this with Adobe reader?

 

does an alternative PDF reader - Foxit for instance - display the same?

 

I had something similar here with adobe reader, but would only ever print the first page of any pdf...never got to the bottom of it, just changed PDF reader.

[Azhibberd]

We had the exact same problem, although in all honestly i can't rememeber what it was, I think it was looking for the paper from the wrong area with that printer! i realised it after i printed it as a pdf from a pdf then printed that one and it was fine ... I'll give them a call tomorrow and see if i can see what setting it was i changed to make it work

[theeldergeek]

Is this with Adobe reader?

 

does an alternative PDF reader - Foxit for instance - display the same?

 

I had something similar here with adobe reader, but would only ever print the first page of any pdf...never got to the bottom of it, just changed PDF reader.

 

Only tried AR as installing additional software here is a bit of a 'hike' due to our managed desktops environment. However, it did work using my unmanaged desktop which is also AR. Suspect the issue potentially lies somewhere in the Powerfuse desktop.

Edited October 20, 2010 by theeldergeek

[Domino]

Only tried AR as installing additional software here is a bit of a 'hike' due to our managed desktops environment. However, it did work using my unmanaged desktop which is AR. Suspect the issue lies somewhere in the Powerfuse desktop.

 

Ah, gotcha.

 

TBH though - it might be worth going the distance to install foxit, its much more lightweight as an alternative to AR, and much easier to deal with generally.

 

just a thought..

[SYNACK]

Have to second the removal of AR, it just plain causes problems, FoxIT is easily installed via GPO and AR is easy enough to remove via a script. Removing Acrobat Reader from all of my network has been a great decision from every point of view apart from adobe's, users like it because its quick and stable, I like it because it deploys easily and is comparitivly inpeneterable from a security standpoint when compared with AR. It can also handle the little things like redirected app data folders and stuff like that which Adobe still has issues with.