When printing a document to PDF the document saves to PDF but has lots of unreadable garbled characters including lines coming out badly.
All my invoices don't print to pdf properly anymore.
Seems to be a known problem :
macOS 14 Sonoma's PDF Printing Issue and Potential Fixes (bnn.network)
Annyone able to get around this issue?
MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 14.0
Word and Excel have a File menu : Save As… : File Format: PDF capability. Why not use that?
Word and Excel have a File menu : Save As… : File Format: PDF capability. Why not use that?
Indeed this works fine.
If you print the save as PDF the output is messed up but if you save... then choose the PDF format the output is normal.
This will save me in the meantime but the bug is definitely unique to Sonoma as I've been doing the print the save as PDF with all the OS versions that came before Sonoma.
Here is my trick to create a dummy printer using a stable and proven printer driver (and avoiding any relation to your existing printer or driver):
1) In System Settings->Printers & Scanners, click "Add Printer, Scanner or Fax"
2) Click IP and enter a valid but fictitious address, like 1.1.1.1
3) Select Use: Generic Postscript Driver
4) Skip the setting up of the printer (as of course your mac won't be able to communicate with this fake printer)
Then you can do Command-P, choose this "printer" and Save as PDF.
Does that also produce garbled text?
Could this be a driver or font issue?
Validate your fonts with Font Book.
I would try a different printer driver. Yes, even if you print to pdf the printer driver is involved.
Does this occur with other applications also, or just Word and Excel? Are those applications up to date?
I just found this thread. I'm having the same problem exactly as described in this thread.
When printing or, in the print dialog, saving as PDF the result is gibberish.
I also tried the suggestion of creating a dummy printer with generic postscript driver. It didn't work.
Am curious if there's an update on this issue?
My current workaround, since I also have MS11 installed in Parallel is to pop over to MS and use the "Microsoft Print to PDF" in the windows print dialog.
More info : This seems to plague AirPrint drivers at least for a bunch of Brother printers. My main one is a MFC-L3770CDW and it prints/saves as PDF with artifacts/garbles characters with the AirPrint driver taht comes with the OS.
But again, if your printer driver is incompatible with Sonoma, it doesn't matter that you were successful printing to PDF prior to Sonoma. You may need to update that driver from the printer vendor — if they still provide one for macOS 14, or if supported in Apple's AirPrint as a networked device, use that approach by removing and re-adding the printer using AirPrint instead of a vendor driver choice.
I encountered the same problem as superdad.
This method did not work for me. I also tried Export and Share but all the same. Fonts are garbled. I reinstalled my Microsoft office apps and it is still the same.
This behaviour seems to happens with any print driver. I've tried a whole bunch and as for the Fonts all the fonts I have are validated. My main printer is installed as an AirPrint printer.
Same result with a dummy printer whatever printer/driver I am using.
Getting garbled characters when printing Word, Excel files to PDF on MacOS Sonoma
