Edge - Print PDF as image

[73kruegs]

Hello,

Recently when Chrome/Edge moved from version 107 to 108, we started having problems printing certain PDFs in our environment when opened in the built-in PDF viewer.  After a bunch of testing and opening a call with Google, it does appear that the problem is somewhere on our end of things, but we can't pinpoint it.  

The work-around that we found was to enable the check box "Print as image" in the print dialog.  When that is selected, the print works fine.  I have enabled the Chrome policy "Print PDF as Image Available" to make the check box show on the print dialog in Chrome, but from what I can tell, there is no equivalent policy in Edge.  There is a policy labeled "Print PDF as Image Default", however, when that is enabled and I go to "edge://policy" in the browser, there is an error in the application of that setting because it doesn't have the setting available, which I assume is referring to the "Print as image" setting like what is in the Chrome policy.

One thing I tried was to add the registry "PrintPdfAsImageAvailability" in the Edge policy location but that didn't appear to do anything.

Does anyone know if there is a way to add the "Print as image" checkbox to the Edge print dialog when printing a PDF?

Eric Krueger

[#2]

@73kruegs Hi!  If there is no PII, would you be able to provide a screenshot of edge://policy showing the error message for the PrintPdfAsImageDefault policy?  Thanks! 

-Kelly

[#3]

@Kelly_Y Here is the screen shot from Edge.

This is the policy setting that I tried to apply.

This is the policy setting that we have applied for Chrome.

[#4]

@73kruegs Thanks!  I'll check with the team and follow up with any insights from them.  

-Kelly

[#5]

@73kruegs Hello!  Just to confirm, if you configure the PrintPdfAsImageDefault policy to "True" and even with the error message, are you able to print the PDF correctly?  Our developers want to double check if in your scenario, Microsoft Edge makes the Print as image option the default when printing PDFs, even if you are seeing the error in Edge://policy.  

Our developers will continue to investigate, I believe they are looking into adding the PrintPdfAsImageAvailability policy to MS Edge.  We will keep you posted! 

-Kelly

[#6]

Hello!

It does appear that it prints that way by default and fixes the problem, even though it gives an error on the policy page. However, we are a little concerned that this will change the print slightly for other PDFs that don't need it so that is why we would rather have the checkbox to choose whether or not to enable that.

On a side note, we did find the culprit of the problem. It appears that the combination of Chrome/Edge v108+ and the post script printer driver are causing these forms to print incorrectly. If we change to use a PCL print driver to the printer, then it prints fine without the "print image" option. Based on that, I have no idea if the problem is Chrome/Edge, our forms or the Post Script printer driver. Like the above change, we can't just blanketly update all of our printer objects to a different driver, since then we will end up having problems with other documents that are working.

Thanks for the help!

Eric

[#7]

@73kruegs Thanks for the information!  I'll pass this along to our developers.  Also, I'll follow up with any updates from the team about adding the PrintPdfAsImageAvailability policy.  

-Kelly

[#8]

@Kelly_Y 

Any update on this? We are having similar issues with some PDF documents not printing properly from Edge.

Thx