Problems printing puzzles?

Firefox on Windows

In spring of 2017 I have received numerous reports that the tops of numbers are being cut off when printing from the Firefox browser. Further investigation shows that this is due to a recent change in Firefox -- it no longer uses the Adobe PDF plugin for printing, but instead (by default) internally converts PDFs to HTML (poorly) before printing.

The simplest work around is to download the PDF file first, by clicking on the download icon (as shown) when viewing it. Then find the file in your Downloads folder and print it from there.

Another work-around is to download and enable a better PDF plugin, such as the Adobe Acrobat plug-in. Instructions are here. Or maybe just switch to the Google Chrome browser.

Internet Explorer on Windows

A few of you have told me that old versions of Internet Explorer are crashing when you attempt to view puzzles.

If you are running an old version of Adobe Reader, you should upgrade to the latest version, which you can find at Adobe's website. If, after upgrading, you still have problems, read on.

If you can switch to a different web browser, such as Google Chrome, I suggest you do so. Chrome generally has fewer problems with printing. I personally use Chrome all the time. Note that Firefox is currently having issues with printing.

If you can't change your web browser, here are a couple of work-arounds.

Method 1) Set Adobe Reader to not display puzzles in the browser. The browser plug-in is more unstable, so this may fix the problem.

• Open Adobe Reader.
• Open the Edit menu and select Preferences.
• On the left hand side of the Preferences window, select the Internet category.
• Uncheck the "Display PDF in browser" option.

Method 2) Download puzzles before printing them.

• Right-click on a puzzle link, and select "Save Target As" from the menu that appears.
• Use the resulting dialog box to save the file to your desktop.
• After the file downloads, double click on the file's icon (on your desktop) to open it.

Windows 10

If you've just upgraded to Windows 10, you may have trouble figuring out how to print. The print command is hidden behind the three little lines on the upper left, as in this picture.

Macintosh and the Safari Browser

If you see a blank page when you attempt to view/print the puzzles, the problem may be due to the Adobe Reader plug-in being installed. There are two work-arounds.

Method 1) Don't use Safari - use Chrome instead. If you can't change your web browser, try Method 2 or Method 3.

Method 2) Uninstall the Adobe Reader plug-in. Go to your /Library/Internet Plug-Ins folder and remove the following two files:

• AdobePDFViewer.plugin
• AdobePDFViewerNPAPI.plugin

This will force Safari to use the default "Preview" plug-in, which works better.

Method 3) Download puzzles before printing them.

• Right-click on a puzzle link, and select "Download Linked File As..." from the menu that appears.
• Use the resulting dialog box to save the file to your desktop.
• After the file downloads, double click on the file's icon (on your desktop) to open it.