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For setting up Print Preview you have to use at least the
Admin from EtherShare 2.6. This version will be copied to your "EtherShare Applications" volume automatically during installation from HELIOS CD 013. In case you installed EtherShare and the PDF Handshake base product from a previous CD and created local copies of the Admin program then, these copies may be outdated now. Replace them by the correct version from the "EtherShare Applications" volume.

Open the EtherShare Admin from your "EtherShare Applications" volume, or from the Apple menu as shown in figure 6. This alternative is available if you installed the Admin by means of the "EtherShare Client Installer" which is described in your EtherShare 2.6 "Release notes".

Fig. 6: Access to the EtherShare Admin

The Printer Name you choose for your preview queue will appear in the "Printers" list later. In that list, it will be preceded by the PDF icon. An example is shown in figure 7 where "viewRIP1" is an existing preview queue.

The Chooser Name you define should include the word "preview" or a similar expression that identifies the character of the queue. This will help you find the preview queue in the Apple Chooser later.

The Spool Directory you select should have enough free space. Even though the previews themselves are not very large, the program might need a lot of temporary space during preview generation. Generating e.g. a 72 dpi preview of one A4 page, with the composite result and four separation plates, will need about 4 MB temporary disk space. More details about this issue are given in chapter 4.1 System requirements.

The Hold Queue plays an important part in Print Preview's philosophy. The software can be configured to automatically forward print jobs from the preview queue to a second queue - the one you specify as Hold Queue.

Fig. 8: Specifying a Hold Queue

As shown in figure 8, you can choose any queue that is available on the server. The best choice for you depends on your workflow and environment. Chapter 5.4 Possible workflows gives several examples of sensible workflows and sensible Hold Queue definitions. Here are some general considerations:

First of all - as shown in figure 8 - you can choose a real hold queue and set up on this queue a sensible hold time. The preview files that are forwarded to that queue will then be kept there until the time you specified has expired, or until you remove the files manually, e.g. drag them to a "real printing" printer queue after you have checked the previews. In case you have not yet set up a hold queue, you may refer to chapter 5.1.5 About hold queues.

Your Hold Queue may also be a printer queue that does not hold jobs, but sends them to an output device. In that case, you have two options: You can set the printer queue to Spool only, then check all preview files that arrive in that queue, and finally print the jobs you have checked by setting the queue to Spool & Print. Alternatively, you can set the printer queue to Spool & Print and specify a hold queue for that printer queue. The jobs that come from the preview queue will then be printed immediately and a preview file of each job will be stored on the hold queue for future use. This workflow is only meant for "print-and-store" purposes; it does not allow to pre-check jobs before printing.

If you do not specify a Hold Queue at all, this would mean (by default) that all jobs remain stored in the preview queue - with only the first job being executed! Note that the Hold Queue option is closely connected to the checkbox Suppress Forward to Hold Queue which is described in paragraph Suppress Forward to Hold Queue below.

Assigning an Error Queue is optional. For large environments, if you have several physical printers and several preview queues, it might be sensible to create several error queues as well and to assign a separate error queue to each preview queue. This can help you better co-ordinate the jobs that have failed.

Leave Accounting File checked to ensure that the Admin adds each print job on this queue to the printer log file. You can access existing printer log files through the Lists menu.

Printing to LaserWriter queues is password-protected, if the Require Authentication option is activated. Thus, print jobs can only be processed on LaserWriter-queues after correct authentication. This option affects all LaserWriter printer queues on the same server.

Hide Queue is unchecked by default. Checking this option would mean that the preview queue will not appear in the Apple Chooser. Usually, this is not desired; so leave the checkbox as is.

In the bottom part of the dialog you can set the parameters for the preview files that will be generated on that queue. Figure 9 shows the settings that should be used for a typical preview-then-print workflow - and that are sensible if you have specified a Hold Queue. (Figure 7 at the beginning of this chapter shows the program's default settings.)

Fig. 9: Setting parameters for the preview files

This option will include all separation plates in the preview file. In case you have printed composite, the separation plates of the four process colors are calculated by Print Preview and added to the preview file.

This option will include the composite impression in the preview file. In case you have printed separations, the composite impression is calculated by Print Preview and added to the preview file.

If you check both, Include Separations and Include Color Preview, your preview file will contain at least five preview pages for each document page you have printed, namely: Composite, Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black (and additional preview pages for a print job with spot colors).

By default, Suppress Forward to Hold Queue is checked so that the jobs will stay in the preview queue until somebody moves (or removes) them manually. The option must be checked if you do not specify a Hold Queue. Otherwise, the jobs will - after preview generation - be forwarded to nowhere, meaning that they will disappear completely. In case you want to activate automatic forwarding, you have to specify a Hold Queue and uncheck Suppress Forward to Hold Queue. (More details and examples are given in chapter 5.4 Possible workflows.)

Antialias should remain checked because it smoothes the contours of the elements in the preview files and thus makes them more legible on a monitor. Antialiasing will slightly increase the period of time the software needs to generate a preview file.

72 dpi is an adequate value for preview files. It is the standard monitor resolution and is therefore best-suited for monitor proofs. If you intend to use the preview files for other purposes later - e.g. if you intend to print them again - you may specify a higher resolution here. Note that the resolution has a great influence on the temporary disk space that is needed in the spool directory when generating the preview files. If you double the resolution (e.g. from 72 to 144 dpi) this would quadruple the temporary disk space requirements.

From the Compression pop-up menu, you can select None, ZIP, or JPEG (Low, Medium, High, Maximum Quality). For details on the JPEG quality see jpegquality=int in chapter 6 Reference part. We recommend to specify a compression (ZIP is a lossless compression and is therefore the best choice), because otherwise the program will need about twice as much temporary disk space during preview generation, and will create large preview files as well. The maximum size of a new PDF file will be identical to the temporary disk space needed for its generation in case you do not activate any kind of compression.

As soon as you press the Save button in the printer settings dialog, the new preview queue will be established and it will automatically inherit the PPD file and the printer fonts of the queue you have specified as Hold Queue. This is very useful - e.g. if your Hold Queue is the printer queue you use for production - because it guarantees that Print Preview uses for preview generation the same PPD file information and the same fonts that will later be used for printing.

The correct PPD file has a great influence on whether the preview and the final printout are identical. If you move the print job from your Hold Queue to a printer queue that uses a different PPD file the result on the output side may differ from what you have seen in the preview. The following illustration shows an example environment with several printer queues that use different PPD files.

In an environment like that shown in figure 10, you should create a separate preview queue for each printer queue you have - or more precisely, for each PPD file that is in use on one or more printer queues.

The EtherShare Admin also allows you to display the currently selected PPD file. This can be very useful, e.g. if you want to check whether a certain hold queue and the desired printer queue use the same PPD file information. To open the current PPD file, choose items Printer and Edit PPD as shown in figure 11. The exact file name of the PPD file is given in line "NickName".

To specify OPI and ICC settings for your new preview queue, you have to highlight the queue in the "Printers" list and then select Printer and OPI/ICC Settings from the Admin menu.

The dialog shown in figure 12 is already described in your EtherShare OPI and/or PDF Handshake manual. In the following, we give you additional information that are important when using Print Preview:

Fig. 12: OPI/ICC Settings on a preview queue

OPI users should specify the same OPI settings on the preview queue that are defined on the queue that will finally be used for production. Please note that if Print Preview and the PDF Handshake base product are running in demo mode you should uncheck Check Fonts. The demo mode restricts access to the fonts that come with PDF Handshake. If Print Preview needs one of these fonts, the result will depend on the Check Fonts setting: If the option is switched off Print Preview will deliver a warning, but nevertheless generate a preview file. Otherwise, the warning will pop up and preview generation will fail.

PostScript high-resolution images can be compressed in order to keep the required disk space small. From the pull-down menus you can choose the type of compression (and the required quality in case of JPEG). However, we recommend not to compress PostScript high-resolution images since they would have to be extracted newly before layout image generation which would result in considerably more load on the server.

Note: The "Compress" and "ZIP" compression methods work without any image quality loss. However, JPEG compression always means more or less loss to the image quality.

To get a correct preview of your print job, check the settings for Check ICC Profiles for Pictures and Default Printer Profile on the queue you use for production and specify the same settings on your preview queue.

Note that if Include Separations is checked in the printer settings dialog (see figure 9) the Default Printer Profile must be a CMYK profile - Hexachrome is not yet supported by Print Preview. If Include Separations is unchecked the printer profile can be either a CMYK or a RGB profile.

As long as Default Printer Profile is set to None, Print Preview does not apply color matching, but uses for color mode transformations the standard CMYK profile. Such transformations may become necessary if print jobs contain RGB elements and Include Separations is checked. In that case, Print Preview has to transform RGB data into CMYK when generating the preview file.

Remember that you have to specify a Default Printer Profile to activate the Default Proof Profile option. Then, select the profile of your current monitor (compare figure 12). This will allow Print Preview to generate a preview file that exactly simulates the colors of your print job on screen. Any other RGB, CMYK, or Lab proof profile will be accepted as well. See chapter 5.4 Possible workflows for different examples of color management settings.

Note: Basic information about color matching and proof printing are given in appendix A 2 of your PDF Handshake manual.

A hold queue stores print jobs for a given period of time. Hold queues are not connected to a physical printer. If you want to print a job from a hold queue you have to move it to the job window of a "real printing" printer queue.

To create a hold queue, choose Hold Queue from the Connection pop-up menu (see figure 13). The Hide Queue option is checked for hold queues, because, usually, you do not print to hold queues directly and therefore do not want them to appear in the Apple Chooser. The default Hold Time is 3 hours. You can replace it by any other integer value. If you set the time to 0 Days and 0 Hours, this would mean "on hold forever". The "on hold forever" setting may be sensible if you forward jobs from a preview queue to a hold queue, because otherwise preview files could disappear before you have been able to check them.

Fig. 13: Hold Queue settings

Now that you have set up a preview queue, you can select it from the Chooser and use it for printing (see figure 14). If you select a PPD file in the Chooser, make sure that it is the same you defined for the queue with EtherShare Admin.

Fig. 14: Choosing a preview queue

Printing may produce warnings, namely in case the software is not fully licensed: If you run PDF Handshake and Print Preview in demo mode and print to a preview queue the programs will deliver a warning and print two demo banners on each preview page. If both products run with a time-limited license you will still receive a warning, but there will be no demo banners.

Double-click your preview queue in the Printers list to open the job window and observe the progress of preview generation (compare figure 15).

Fig. 15: Print job during preview generation

In case automatic forwarding to the "hold" queue has been activated, the print job will disappear from the preview queue after preview generation and it will show up in the "hold" queue again.

Double-click the "hold" queue in the Printers list to access the preview file in the job window (see figure 16). The PDF icon in front of the file name indicates that preview generation has been successful.

Fig. 16: Preview file on the hold queue

Note that with Suppress Forward to Hold Queue being checked, the jobs remain stuck in the preview queue. There, preview generation will only be performed for the first job in line. Additional jobs will have to wait.

Double-clicking a job's PDF icon in the hold or preview queue automatically starts your Acrobat application. Exchange or Reader 3.0 must be installed on your system. (You can also highlight the job and choose File - Save As from the Admin menu to save the PDF file for future use.)

Important: For security reasons, the access rights to preview files are pre-defined: You can access a preview file if you are root, owner, or member of the printer administration group (i.e. PrnAdm, QueueAdm, or SysAdm). Otherwise, access will be denied.

Before the preview pages, the PDF files contain a HELIOS info page (compare figure 18) that stores some important information about the file, e.g. generation time, resolution, compression, used profiles, etc. The last three lines serve as placeholder for your individual comments. If you are using Acrobat Exchange you can switch to the TouchUp Text tool and then enter a comment.

Fig. 18: Information on the HELIOS info page

The Table Of Contents lists the document pages you have printed. There may be subpages if your preview file contains the composite result and the separations (compare figure 18). The page numbers in the Table Of Contents are copied from the document you have printed - you will find e.g. 13, 14, 15, if you have printed pages 13 to 15. In case your application does not forward page counts correctly, Print Preview will generate new page numbers for the Table Of Contents.

You can also use the Acrobat thumbnails for file navigation. An example is given in figure 19. The illustration also shows the HELIOS demo banner that is included in the PDF file if you run Print Preview in demo mode.

Fig. 19: Using thumbnails for file navigation

From an application, you can only print either composite or separations. In a preview file, however, you can have both, the composite impression and the separation plates - independent of whether you have printed composite or separations. That means that Print Preview has to calculate one of the previews on its own: If you have printed separations, the composite preview has to be calculated by Print Preview, and if you have printed composite, the separation plates have to be calculated by Print Preview. For these calculations, Print Preview must rely on the information that are sent by the application. In case these information are not ADSC-compliant, the calculations may fail and this may lead to corrupt (or missing) composite or separation previews in a preview file. This does not effect real printing.

Warnings, e.g. about corrupt separations, are added to the print job accounting file which can - as usual - be opened by a double-click on the job (not on the PDF icon).

Usually, Print Preview recognizes the page size of the document that is printed and uses the same size for the preview file. If this is impossible because the application does not forward the correct page size, the default is A4.

Usually, Print Preview generates only one preview for each document page you have printed, even if you have specified a higher number of copies in the print dialog. If you move the job from the preview or hold queue to a "real-printing" queue after checking the preview, the number of copies will be recognized again, meaning that if you have specified e.g. 4 copies you will get 4 printouts of each document page.

Note: If your preview file already contains more than one preview of each document page this indicates that your application prints each page several times instead of printing it once and specifying in the PostScript file the number of copies you have entered.

Close all preview files in your Acrobat application before closing the EtherShare Admin. If you quit the Admin program first all preview files that are still in use will remain on your local Macintosh and re-appear as temporary items in your trash after the next system restart.

In a production environment, you may want to set up a "preview-then-print" configuration that is as efficient as possible, meaning that printing can be started very easily after checking the previews on screen.

Create a preview queue and select the printer queue you use for production from the Hold Queue pop-up menu in the

Fig. 20: Setting up a preview queue for the "check-on-monitor" workflow

Suppress Forward to Hold Queue must be unchecked in the settings dialog. Antialias and 72 dpi are recommended, because these settings guarantee maximum legibility of the future preview files on a monitor.

Save the settings dialog. The preview queue will now inherit the PPD file from the Hold Queue you specified (here: "RIP2"). This guarantees that the parameters used for preview generation are identical to those used for production.

To activate color matching on your preview queue, open the OPI/ICC Settings dialog. Choose the Default Printer Profile that is also used on your printer queue (the one that describes your final output device), and select your monitor profile as Default Proof Profile (compare figure 21).

Fig. 21: OPI and ICC settings for the "check-on-monitor" workflow

If you want to check the preview files on different monitors, you should select the standard EBU-RGB profile as Default Proof Profile. This will turn out to be a pretty good compromise.

Open the preview queue's job window to observe the progress of preview generation (compare figure 15 in chapter 5.2). Then, open the printer queue's job window. The new PDF preview files will be forwarded to this queue automatically. To check the previews, double-click the respective PDF icons.

Finally, after you have checked all jobs that are currently displayed in the printer queue's job window, you can set this queue to Spool & Print and thereby start production.

Usually, print jobs disappear after they have been printed. If you want to have them available for re-production you should set up a hold queue for your printer queue, e.g. one that is called "hold" as described in chapter 5.1.5. Set the hold time to 0 days and 0 hours, i.e. "on hold forever".

With this configuration, print jobs will automatically proceed from preview queue to printer queue to hold queue. From the hold queue's job window, you can drag them to the printer queue again to restart production.

This workflow is recommended if you do not check the previews on a monitor before starting production, but send the PDF preview files to your customers (e.g. via e-mail) who can print them from their Acrobat application and then check the printouts.

Create a hold queue, e.g. one that is called "hold" as described in chapter 5.1.5. Set the hold time to 0 days and 0 hours, i.e. "on hold forever". Select for the hold queue the same PPD file that will later be used for the printer queue.

We strongly recommend to specify a Compression. Otherwise, with a resolution of 150 dpi, preview generation will need too much disk space. Moreover, compressed preview files are smaller and can be exchanged more easily.

Fig. 22: Setting up a preview queue for the "check-on-printer" workflow

Important: Whenever you gather preview files on a hold queue, keep in mind that you have to forward them to a printer queue later. The hold and printer queue must use the same PPD file. Otherwise, the printouts may differ from the previews (see also figure 10 in chapter 5.1.3).

The Default Printer Profile must be the same profile that is specified on the queue you will later use for production. The Default Proof Profile should be the profile of the Apple Color LaserWriter (or of any other proof printer your customer may use).

EtherShare OPI users may enter OPI settings in the upper section of the OPI/ICC Settings dialog, if required. The configuration should be identical to the one on the printer queue you will later use for production.

Open the preview queue's job window to observe the progress of preview generation. Then, open the hold queue's job window. The new PDF preview files will be forwarded to this queue automatically. To save a particular preview file into a directory, highlight the file in the job window and select File > Save As... from the Admin menu.

Finally, open the directory that contains the PDF files and send them to your customer, e.g. via e-mail. Tell your customer to print the files to the Apple Color LaserWriter and to check the printouts. (You can also grant your customer access to your server by using EtherShare's IP Access list. In that case, you do not have to send the files via e-mail.)

If you have more than one print job for a specific customer it may be toilsome to save each PDF preview file separately from the hold queue into a specific directory. Print Preview allows you to automate the saving of preview files. For that purpose, you have to change the main configuration file "atalk.conf". Details are given in paragraph pdfdir="string" in chapter 6 Reference part.

Usually, the PDF Handshake base product and Print Preview only support PostScript queues, meaning that printing requires a PostScript device on the output side. With Print Preview, you can by-pass this requirement, because printing to a preview queue means printing into a PDF file. The new PDF files can be printed again from any Acrobat application on any platform; and Acrobat supports different devices as e.g. serially connected non-PostScript printers. The following example describes how you can produce high-quality color printouts on a non-PostScript Epson Stylus ink jet printer. This workflow is meant for customers who have an Epson Stylus proof printer - or for customers who want to use their Epson Stylus printer as final output device. In the latter case, see paragraph Epson Stylus as final output device at the end of this chapter.

To support the "Epson" workflow, we include on our current CD-ROM two additional printer profiles, one for the Epson Stylus 600 printer, and one for the Epson Stylus Photo printer. The profiles are called "EpsonStylus600 GlossyPaper 1.0" and "EpsonStylusPhotoGlossyPaper 1.0" and should have been copied to your ICC-Profiles volume automatically. If you cannot find them, please read the README file on the CD-ROM. We recommend to use the "Epson S 041 126 Glossy Paper" as print medium.

According to our tests, 360 dpi is a proper value for Resolution. The default resolution of 72 dpi is meant for monitor display only, it is not suited for high-quality printouts.

Save the settings dialog and select a PPD file. We have tested this workflow with the "Acrobat Distiller" and with the "Apple Color LaserWriter 12/600" PPD file. Both PPD files produce correct results. So, you should define one of them, even though you will not print to a PostScript device in the end.

The Default Printer Profile must be the same profile that is specified on the queue you will later use for production. The Default Proof Profile should be one of the two Epson profiles we deliver on our CD-ROM, e.g. "EpsonStylusPhotoGlossyPaper 1.0". Note that both Epson profiles are RGB profiles. This is another reason for unchecking Include Separations in the printer settings dialog, because the option does not co-operate with RGB profiles.

Figure 26 shows the Epson Stylus Photo print dialog and the settings we recommend. These settings switch off the printer's color management and leave color matching to the HELIOS server - which guarantees more accurate results. The settings harmonize with both profiles we deliver.

Fig. 26: Recommended settings in the Epson Stylus print dialog

In case the Epson printer is your production device, you have to choose the Epson profile, e.g. "EpsonStylusPhotoGlossyPaper 1.0", as Default Printer Profile on your preview queue (compare figure 27). A Default Proof Profile is not required.


HELIOS Print Preview 1.1 User manual

HELIOS Print Preview 1.1 User manual