I am writing to formally report a bug that has persisted across multiple versions of Adobe Acrobat and affects virtually every professional user in business environments.
The Problem
After every major Acrobat update, the "Rely on system fonts only; do not use document fonts" setting in the Adobe PDF printer resets to checked, causing print-to-PDF jobs to fail and generate error log files instead of PDF output. The only resolution is to manually uncheck the setting after each update, either through Printing Preferences or Printer Defaults.
This has been documented in Adobe community forums dating back well over four years, with multiple threads accumulating thousands of views and no permanent resolution offered.
The Scope
This is not a fringe issue. It affects the core professional user base — businesses running ERP systems, accounting software, and document-intensive workflows that rely on embedded or custom fonts. In my own organization, every single user experiences this problem after each update without exception. The raw user count submitting complaints likely understates the real impact because many users simply fix it manually each time without reporting it.
The Fix Is Straightforward
The solution is a standard save-and-restore pattern that is common practice in software updates across the industry. Before overwriting the printer driver during an update, read and store the user's existing preference values, complete the update, then reapply the saved values. This is a well-understood, minimal-effort engineering task. The setting is explicitly user-configurable, has a documented history of causing widespread disruption, and there is no valid reason for an update to override it.
Request
I am asking Adobe engineering to implement preference preservation for this setting as part of the standard update process. This is a straightforward fix that would permanently resolve a years-long pain point for your paying professional customers.
Thank you for your attention to this issue.