'Print to PDF' quality Poor

I have been searching the internet for an answer to my problem, however none of the suggestions seem to work. Whenever I try to 'print to pdf' or open in preview and save as a pdf, the font and image quality goes down the drain. I have looked at my settings (pixels per inch is normal (108), smooth line art and smooth images is checked off, etc..), I have no idea what is going wrong and why the quality of the pdf is so poor. Any ideas???  I have attached a sample of the difference.

Before:

After:

Thanks!