Opening a PDF brings up the Print dialog

Question

I have some PDF's which, when I double-click to open, automatically bring up the Print dialog box in Adobe Reader X. I'm on Windows XP. I think this is because of some code within the PDF itself. Is there some way I can disable such automatic printing from Adobe Reader?

score 27 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 29 '11 at 07:23

If it's happening only with some specific files then it's probably because:

You can tie Acrobat JavaScript code to a specific PDF document, a page, field, or button within that document, or a field or button within the PDF file, and even to a user action

You can disable javascript in Adobe Reader:

Open Edit -> Preferences
Click on Javascript on the left-hand pane
Uncheck Enable Acrobat Javascript on the right-hand pane

score 26 · Answer 2 · edited Apr 22 '13 at 17:14

26

Open in Adobe Acrobat. Goto tools > Javascript > choose "Document Javascripts". Then a dialog box pops up. There will be this.print() code with a corresponding script name (0 in my case). Just press delete botton in the dialog box and save.

edited Apr 22 '13 at 17:14

Kazark

3,509

answered Apr 22 '13 at 16:29

user218924

261

score 5 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 07 '21 at 07:52

Hi a very simple method will be to just open the pdf file with Notepad or Notepad++ & then just find & Comment this line

/JS (this.print\({bUI:true,bSilent:false,bShrinkToFit:true}\);)

like this

//JS (this.print\({bUI:true,bSilent:false,bShrinkToFit:true}\);)

then just save the document & you are Done, Enjoy your PDF like you Want it.

score 2 · Answer 4 · edited May 08 '18 at 12:47

2

These didn't work for me, however, using Tool > Protection > Remove Hidden Information and selecting the item with Javascript to remove did work.

edited May 08 '18 at 12:47

PeterH

7,595

answered May 08 '18 at 12:41

Florence

21

score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Apr 15 '19 at 18:59

1

The easiest way to solve this is to simply print the file to another PDF file, and name it something slightly different than the original. That will remove the printing prompt from automatically opening.

answered Apr 15 '19 at 18:59

user1022098

11

score 1 · Answer 6 · edited Jul 16 '12 at 03:00

1

Try to re-create (or re-print) the PDF file using PDFCreator.

edited Jul 16 '12 at 03:00

Simon Sheehan

9,204

answered Apr 29 '12 at 02:14

malhobayyeb

543

score 0 · Answer 7 · answered Jul 05 '19 at 05:18

With a PDF this same problem had been happening to for me, I was able to make the necessary alterations without Acrobat. I opened the the PDF in a text editor. As noted by Kazark there was a line with "this.print()". I simply deleted the line, and that fixed the problem.

score 0 · Answer 8 · answered Apr 12 '21 at 13:22

If you have Adobe Acrobat Pro here is the solution tested under XI version.

Open the target document and cancel Print dialog
Go to Tools => JavaScript => Set Document Actions => Edit All
Search for this line: this.print({bUI:true,bSilent:false,bShrinkToFit:true});
Comment the line: //this.print({bUI:true,bSilent:false,bShrinkToFit:true});
Click OK, click OK again, save the document. Voila!

score 0 · Answer 9 · answered Jul 13 '22 at 09:33

You can open the pdf with notepad, look for the lines that look something like:

<<
/Type /Action
/S /JavaScript
/JS (this.print\({bUI:true,bSilent:false,bShrinkToFit:true}\);)
>>

and delete the 3 lines:

/Type /Action
/S /JavaScript
/JS (this.print\({bUI:true,bSilent:false,bShrinkToFit:true}\);)

score 0 · Answer 10 · answered Apr 07 '15 at 16:59

0

Open the Document Properties in Adobe Acrobat (Ctrl+D) and make sure that no toolbars or window controls are hidden in the tab Initial View.

answered Apr 07 '15 at 16:59

Christian

135

Opening a PDF brings up the Print dialog

10 Answers10