FIX Unable to print mixed letter and legal size using a Mac
This appears to be an ongoing issue for the past several years and I am still experiencing what so many others have found. There is a problem printing a LARGE (100+) PDF with mixed legal and letter sized pages using Adobe Reader on a Mac with a Brother laser printer.
I think that Adobe support has not been able to recreate the issue because their test file has only two pages. If they create a 100+ page test file with mixed letter and legal and they should be able to replicate the issue.
Here is what I have:
I have a MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2016) running Catalina, Brother HL-L6200DWT printer and using Adobe Acrobat Reader DC 2020.009.20063. I have all of the settings set correctly per the Adobe: https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/kb/print-mixed-page-sizes-acrobat.html
I contacted Brother support as well and followed the details found at : https://help.brother-usa.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/102267
This included downloading and using the latest drivers from Brother. As instructed I tried both their CUPS driver and the BR-Script driver.
I have printed using both a direct USB cable and over WiFi.
When I print a large (100+) PDF file with mixed legal and letter it initially works for the first 10 or 20 pages but eventually the pages get cut off with legal pages being printed half way down the page and/or cut off. It is as though the data being sent to the printer eventually becomes "corrupted" so that it is unable to print correctly.
Brother support provided a workaround that does work: Rotate the view of all of the pages by 180°, so it looks upside down on the screen.
Then print the document as usual, and all the pages should print completely.
Attached is a test.pdf file of multiple mixed size pages that I used to replicate the issue.
Also attached is a result.pdf which is a scanned result from the printing showing the issue with pages being cut-off / misprinted. Note that the A4 pages are scanned as legal size, but you can still size how they actually printed on the actual paper.
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Tom Harris commented
For anyone who is using a Mac, and not able to get it to print correctly no matter what you do using Adobe DC etc. I had the same issue and almost went out and bought a PC before I remembered, Macs now have intel processors. Why is that important? Go download Windows 10 Home ISO. You can get it from Microsoft, it's completely legal. Then go online and look up how to setup Bootcamp for Mac. It only takes 50 Gigs of space on your Mac, but you will be able to boot into Mac or PC. Then Download the Brothers drivers and install your printer on the Windows 10 Home and you are all set! I'm a Technical support engineer and almost sold my Mac until I thought of this. Pages print perfectly and only took an hour to configure. Also, you DO NOT have to activate the Windows 10 image. You will be pestered to activate it and limited on some areas of Windows but you CAN install Acrobat and the printer without issue. Hope this helps