The structural synthesis of planar kinematic chains (KCs) with prismatic pairs (P-pairs) is the basis of innovating mechanisms containing P-pairs. In the literature, only a little research has been carried out to synthesize planar KCs with P-pairs. Moreover, these synthesis methods for KCs with P-pairs involve all possible combinations of edges, resulting in a large number of isomorphic KCs and a low synthesis efficiency. In this study, our previous similarity recognition algorithm is improved and applied to synthesize planar KCs with P-pairs. Only a small number of isomorphic KCs are generated in the synthesis process and the synthesis efficiency is greatly enhanced. Our method is applied to synthesize 9-link 2-DOF, 10-link 1-DOF, and 11-link 2-DOF KCs with one and two P-pairs. Our synthesis results are consistent with those of the existing literature. The present work is helpful to design mechanisms with P-pairs and can be extended to mechanisms with other types of kinematic pairs.