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Question

Question

Web Access - Printing a PDF shows an entirely different looking document

Web Client
Updated September 28, 2016
asked on September 21, 2016 • Show version history

We have a PDF that looks like this. Sorry most of the data is redacted, but generally this is what it looks like.

 

If we open this PDF in Windows and select Print, we get the same document.

If we store the PDF in Laserfiche Web Access (not generating pages) and we select Print we get an entirely different document. I have no idea where this document is coming from. It looks like this:

 

It is as if though something reached into the PDF file and changed all the formatting. Much of the data is there but on pages that look entirely different.

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Replies

replied on September 21, 2016

It sounds like you're choosing the option to generate a PDF from the document, rather than exporting the existing PDF. This will turn the searchable text into a PDF upon export.

Instead, choose the option to export/download the "electronic file".

Web Access 10:

Web Access 9.2:

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View 3 previous replies
replied on September 26, 2016

Oh this is not a download. I am choosing to Print the PDF. There is no pages for this document.

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replied on September 28, 2016

Ah, I see; when I worked on WA, there was no direct "Print" option like there is in 10. I've talked to someone on the Web Access team, and they are already aware of the issue. They should be following up some time soon.

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replied on September 28, 2016 • Show version history

Hi Chad,

 

Printing PDFs without image pages isn't supported in Web Access 10. If you open a PDF without pages and click on the command menu on the top left, you'll see print is disabled. From the folder browser, print will be enabled but will return a yellow warning banner advising to download and print the PDF in its native application. 

 

 

When you print the PDF, are you right clicking the PDF and choosing print from the context menu? If so, this context menu is actually from the browser, not Web Access. So when you select print, you're actually printing the entire doc viewer web page. The layout of DocView.aspx (the source page for the document viewer) doesn't lend itself well to printing from the browser, which probably why the resulting image is unrecognizable. 

 

In short, it sounds like the print you're using is the browser's feature for printing the page, not the Web Access feature that directly prints images stored in Laserfiche. 

 

The current workaround is to download the PDF and print it in a PDF viewer application (Adobe or similar). We'll look into expanding the Web Access print feature to print directly from the electronic file/original PDF for a future release. 

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replied on September 28, 2016 • Show version history

Ok good to know. We are not getting the banner requesting download. Just this screen which is not the browser print screen. This is from the Laserfiche print button.

 

Edit:

 

Also as an update from the customer they have many PDFs that are printing perfectly fine from web access. It appears to only be with PDFs with text data included, it is like it is printing the text data instead of the PDF.

 

Another update:

 

I just confirmed that if we don't generate text (which extracts text data from the PDF) then we get the yellow warning that it can't be printed. Not sure why extracting text is related to printing the document, the text data is being used by workflow to read metadata sent over from the vendor which is included as text with the PDF)

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replied on September 28, 2016

OK, I see what's going on. Web Access isn't differentiating between text pages and image pages in this case. The result is that WA is printing text pages as if they were the actual images in the absence of any image pages. 

 

I think the long term solution and short term workaround are still the same. Namely, future releases of Web Access should print the original PDF directly in the absence of image pages, and current customers can download the PDF and print from the native application as a workaround. However, it's good to know this detail about text pages as it may change certain implementation details. 

 

Thanks for getting back to us Chad. 

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replied on September 28, 2016

Ok, the customer is going to train everyone on how to download and print for now. It's just that it saves unnecessary data to their downloads folder. PDF files open in the Adobe Browser Plug-In. I was looking for a print option there but couldn't find one, or if the Laserfiche print button could communicate to the browser plug-in to print somehow that would be cool. Not sure.

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