Under Microsoft Windows XP, a PDF file displayed well, but when I ordered the viewer to print it crashed abruptly. I reproduced the problem with Adobe Acrobat Reader, both standalone and embedded into Mozilla Firefox. I also reproduced it reliably using Foxit Reader. I was puzzled that both programs would crash in the same way, and even more puzzled that they would do it with a variety of PDF files.

As I found out, PDF renderers are apparently very picky about printer drivers. I tried printing to a different printer and the document came out fine.

The interested reader may also want to investigate the influence of font embedding on this problem. I have not performed any tests about it but I suspect it might be interesting to check if any link can be established.