Excel Displays "Accessing Printer" when printing to Adobe Acrobat 2017

Question

I trust you can help with this Excel / Adobe Acrobat issue.

I have been using the same laptop for over a year now. 

HP Elitebook

recently updated to Windows version: 20H2 64-bit

I developed a group of Excel templates that I have been using for over a year now.  The process is to create pdf files from these templates once they are populated with data.  Each template has several tabs to create a separate page in the subsequent pdf file.  About (3) months ago I started noticing Excel was taking longer to print the pdf files and popping us a message box stating "Accessing Printer."

Excel is the only application presenting this issue.  Unfortunately, most of my work is in Excel.  This issue slows down my work progress.  I have tested Nuance PDF and am not having an issue.  I want to stay with Adobe Acrobat for consistency as the rest of the team uses this application.  This is a work computer, not personal and I've had our IT techs looking into the issue.   They found many online posts with the same problem but there isn't an apparent fix, at least not one we have found.  They have not been able to resolve the issue.   These are the versions of MS Excel and Adobe Acrobat currently installed on my machine.

How can I fix this problem?

Answer 1

Hi MGarza91,

I go through your post carefully and as per your description, to help us narrow down the issue, please confirm us with the following information:

1.Please help us check if this is issue is occurring on other Office for apps. Such as Word, PowerPoint? Does the same scenario occur?

2.Does other users in your organization meet same Excel error message.

Additionally, I suggest you can also give a shot with following methods and see the results.

1. Open Excel in safe mode to exclude the issue is related to some third-party add-ins. Then check the result.
2. Change the default printer and then try to open the Excel program and file to check if it helps.

Meanwhile, if it is convenient for you, could you please send the one of affected Excel file to me so that I can take a look from my side and help you to check the scenario.?

If there is confidential information, then you can send it to me in Private Message

I appreciate your patience and understanding.

Best Regards

Waqas Muhammad

Answer 2

Hi MGarza91,

We appreciate that you spent your precious time doing those tests and shared the test results with us. I do understand the inconvenience it has made and apologize for it. And we’re still glad to help you.

It seems issue only happened with Excel app with you save Excel file to PDF using option “Print to PDF”. However, when you use option “Save to PDF” you will not Accessing Printer message error message, but it will change the page format.

I tested with your Excel provided workbook I use both option “Print to PDF” and “Save to PDF” and can successfully generate PDF file with any error message and without changing to page formatting.

You can access my generated PDF file from Excel workbook via Private Message

Since, you mentioned issue only occur with Excel file, to narrow down your issue could you please verify with me, does other users in your organization meet same issue as like you encounter with same Excel version. It will help for us to understand issue related with Microsoft Excel version with updated Adobe Acrobat 2017.

In the meantime, to check whether the issue is caused by specific machine, I suggest you try to test with the same workbook on another PC to check the result.

As you mention “I want to stay with Adobe Acrobat for consistency as the rest of the team uses this application” how about if you use “Adobe Acrobat Reader DC” I tried and it work as expected, if possible, could you please try and verify the result with us.

I appreciate your patience and understanding.

Best Regards

Waqas Muhammad