Forum Discussion
Windows Print to PDF is enabled, but does not work
I just did a pc recovery because I had a hanging update that would not go away, and the system files were corrupt.
Now windows print to pdf shows it is available, but fails to print. The error message is:
Print Failed: Check your printer and try again. Printing failed.
I have done everything to try and fix this:
Run the optionalfeatures.exe command to open the Turn Windows features on or off dialog
Turned off, restarted. Turned back on.
Uninstalled driver and driver package:
Print to PDF shows up fine in my printers list, and is set to default, it just wont print.
I have tried to manually remove microsoft print to pdf and re-add it.
Under vendor/Microsoft, there is not driver for Microsoft print to pdf.
So there is a driver listed under the printui.exe but it does not show up at all when trying to manually add a printer.
Also, print to pdf shows up just fine in the list of available printers, is enabled, and is set to default. There should be no reason to have to add it manually, I was just trying to do so because every tip suggests removing it, and adding it manually.
How do I have the actual print drivers for this, but they do not show up in the manual add?
Can anyone help me?
10 Replies
I have the same issue in updated Win 11. System cannot "Save as PDF" or "Microsoft Print to PDF. Reboot has not helped.
System has "2025-08 Cumulative Update Preview for Windows 11 Version 24H2 for x64-based Systems (KB5064081) (26100.5074)", "Successfully installed on 8/30/2025"
... and "2025-08 Cumulative Update Preview for .NET Framework 3.5 and 4.8.1 for Windows 11, version 24H2 for x64 (KB5064401)", "Successfully installed on 8/29/2025".
I do not believe that print to PDF has worked since those updates.
Any error message from the printer?
No error messages from my printer, and all functions work fine via my printer. This is a weird situation where the drivers show up in the printui.exe, so I can uninstall them there, then reinstall them, but the drivers don't actually show up if I try to manually add the print to pdf feature. That feature is actually active, set to my default printer, but when I actually print to a pdf, it creates an empty file that is unreadable.
conversely, I can "save as a pdf" via my browser just fine, but Microsoft print to pdf, (which is an available option, and the default printer,) creates these empty files.
No error messages from my printer, and all functions work fine via my printer. This is a weird situation where the drivers show up in the printui.exe, so I can uninstall them there, then reinstall them, but the drivers don't actually show up if I try to manually add the print to pdf feature. That feature is actually active, set to my default printer, but when I actually print to a pdf, it creates an empty file that is unreadable.
conversely, I can "save as a pdf" via my browser just fine, but Microsoft print to pdf, (which is an available option, and the default printer,) creates these empty files.
Restart the Print Spooler service and clear print queues.
I have restarted the print spooler, uninstalled drivers, reinstalled drivers, et al. The issue is that it shows up as an available printer, but it prints 0kb files which are unopenable. The print to pdf feature in Edge works fine, but microsoft print to pdf for any other document does not work. It is a feature that should work, and I don't like having to manually save my files as a .pdf in word as it is cumbersome and interrupts my workflow.
Your main challenge is that the driver isn't showing up properly in the manual add process, despite being enabled. Reinstalling via DISM, manually registering drivers with pnputil, resetting the spooler, or creating a new local printer often resolve such issues.
I have done all these things, and still it does not work. I even took another clean driver from another PC and used that to reinstall the driver, and still no joy. This all happened after a windows update, so I am not sure what happened.
Reinstalling the Microsoft Print to PDF Driver
I did reinstall that driver multiple times, turning off print spooler services and disabling the feature prior to doing so. I even reinstalled a clean working driver from another computer of mine with the same version of Windows, and still nothing.
