The “psrip” utility is a command line PostScript RIP application which is suitable for creating previews of vector EPS and PostScript files.
psrip [-v] [-o Option] [-a Attributes] [-m] [-T] [-A] [-l <level>] [-V version] [-e <xpixel,ypixel>] [-p <width,height>] [-s <xshift,yshift>] [-N <serialno>] [-i <InputFileName>] <OutputFilenameBase>
The following options are supported:
Display progress.
Device resolution in dpi (default is 72.0
). Ignored, if page
dimension in inch (-p
) or page dimension in device pixels
(-e
) is set.
Select device color space CMYK
, RGB
or Grayscale
(default is CMYK
).
Enable in-RIP separation. One image file per each colorant
is written, unless you want to produce a multichannel image
file (-m
).
<flag>
can be “on” or “force”. “on” induces “psrip” to
generate a transparency mask, as long as the PostScript file
contains transparencies. “Force” enforces the generation of
a transparency mask even though there are no transparencies in the
document and hence the mask is empty. In doing
so, a consistent paging within the output file(s) is guaranteed.
The transparency mask is saved into a separate grayscale
file by “psrip”, unless a multichannel image file is generated
(see -m
option below). In such a case, the transparency
mask appears as a separate channel in the output file.
List of colorants, written as output. This option does only
work with the inripseparation
option. The value is a list of
colorant names, separated by commas.
If a colorant name contains spaces, the whole list must be
surrounded by quotes. The colorant names must be defined
either implictly by color space (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow,
Black, Red, Green, Blue or Gray) or by SeparationColorNames
.
If SeparationColorNames
is not used, each unknown
colorant (not implicitly defined by color space) is supposed
to be a spot color.
Determines the text rendering quality. There are two values available, “high”, which is the default, and “low”. “high” means that a font-specific algorithm is utilized for rendering the glyphs more accurately. “low” has the advantage of faster rendering.
Determines the image rendering quality. There are two values available, “high”, which is the default, and “low”. If an image has a higher resolution than the output device, and is therefore downscaled, a better image rendering algorithm is used. This needs some time, so this option is primarily meant to switch this algorithm off.
List of available spot colors. This option does only work
with SeparationOrder
and the inripseparation
option. The
value is a list of colorant names, separated by commas.
If a colorant name contains spaces, the whole list must be
surrounded by quotes. If this option is specified, only colorant
names defined here can be used in SeparationOrder
as spot colors.
If a PostScript job uses a separation or DeviceN
color space, the color space tint transform is not used, if the
according (spot) color(s) are known (and thus listed for this
option).
If ImageServer is installed, the default raster image format
is TIFF
. If ImageServer is not installed, this option is not
available and images are always written as raw files.
Supported output file formats are listed in 4.1.2 “Output file formats”.
Image format specific settings, e.g. quality, can be specified
via attributes (see -o Attributes=<attributes>
or -a <attributes>
below).
Suffix of the raster image output file. The default is derived
from the image format, e.g. .tif
for TIFF.
Defines the compression quality of layout files or image components:
For JPEG:
-o CompressQuality <uint32:75>
Creates poor…high quality JPEG image (1…100).
For JPEG 2000:
-o CompressQuality <uint32> (lossless)
Specifies the image quality of a JPEG 2000 image in relation
to the uncompressed high-resolution original. The
values range from 1…100.
CompressQuality
specifies the percentage size of the
JPEG2000 image data compared to the size of the
uncompressed image, which the JPEG 2000 should
not exceed. For example, if an image with lossless
compression has only 50% the size of an uncompressed
image, a CompressQuality
value between
50% and 100% produces no visible differences.
Compression used by the raster image file. Some raster image file formats support several compressions (e.g. Zip compression in TIFF files). This option is only available, if ImageServer is installed.
By default, there is no compression method set. To use a compression method, specify this option with one of the following supported methods:
Flate |
Zip compression format |
JPEG |
JPEG compression format |
Size of the global VM in bytes (default is 10485760
or 10 MB).
The size can be set with an appended “M” and “K” to
specify kB or MB, e.g.: -o gvmsize=15M.
Attributes specifying details of the used image format. This
option is only available, if ImageServer is installed.
<Attributes>
is a comma separated list of key=value
pairs.
For a list of available attributes see 4.1.3 “Attributes for “psrip” options”.
Use this option and enable in-RIP separation (-o inripseparation
)
to create multichannel image files instead of one
file per separation. The following image formats support
multichannel image files:
TIFF Adobe Photoshop JPEG 2000
Photoshop displays spot colors in multichannel images as process colors during the presentation. “psrip” does the calculation by use of the spot color tables (see Workaround 1: in A.2 “Proof printing files with spot colors”).
Create an image with a transparent background. This option
is only available for TIFF and PNG images (see -o RasterImageType=<image format>
).
Do antialiasing (four-times oversampling).
PostScript language level (1, 2 or 3). Default is 2
.
Set the PostScript interpreter version (e.g. 3015.102
).
Page dimension specified in device pixels. xpixel
and ypixel
must
be separated by a comma. The default values are 595
(xpixel) by 842
(ypixel).
Page dimension specified in inches. width
and height
must
be separated by a comma. The default is 8.26
(width) by
11.69
(height). Alternatively, the paper format can be specified. The default is <A4>
.
Supported page sizes:
Letter,
Legal,
Executive,
Ledger,
A0,
A1,
A2,
A3,
A4,
A5,
B0,
B1,
B2,
B3,
B4,
B5,
B6
Shift coordinate system in inches. Positive is direction
upper/right. xshift
and yshift
must be separated by a
comma. The default values are 0
(xshift) by 0
(yshift).
PostScript RIP serial number.
File name of the PostScript file. If no file name is specified, PostScript is read from “stdin” (reading from “stdin”, “psrip” cannot handle binary EPS headers). If PostScript is read from a file (instead of “stdin”), “psrip” can handle files containing a binary EPS header.
Output files will be named:
<OutputFilenameBase>.<PageNumber>.<OutputFileSuffix>
or if in-RIP Separation is enabled (-o inripseparation
) and
one image file per colorant is written:
<OutputFilenameBase>.<PageNumber>.<ColorantName>.<OutputFileSuffix>
Multichannel image files are named in the standard manner of output files.
Display help file.
If ImageServer is installed, the default raster image format
is TIFF. To use a different format specify the -o RasterImageType
option with one
of the following supported formats:
TIFF |
for TIFF image format |
JPEG |
for JPEG image format |
JP2 |
(4 chars!) for JPEG 2000 image format |
8BPS |
for Adobe Photoshop format |
PNGf |
for PNG image format (RGB and Grayscale only) |
PICT |
for Apple PICT image format (RGB and Grayscale only) |
..CT |
for Scitex CT format |
If ImageServer is not installed, the only raster image format is “raw”.
Attributes specify details of the used image format. This option is only available, if ImageServer is installed. Attributes are entered as command line options using the syntax (additional attributes are delimited by commas):
psrip -o Attributes=<attributes>=<value>
or
psrip -a <key>=<value>
(JPEG only) Saves JPEG images per default in
progressive method. If this option is set to TRUE
, JPEG images are saved
as baseline JPEGs instead.
(JPEG only) Use slow, fast or precise DCT (Discrete Cosinus Transformation).
Values are 0
, 1
or 2
. The default is 0
.
The following two attributes are only supported for backward compatibility
with previous ImageServer versions; please do not use these options for new
installations or configurations. Use the option -o CompressQuality
instead:
Create poor … high quality JPEG image (1 … 100).
Specifies the image quality of a JPEG 2000 image in relation to the uncompressed high-resolution original. The values range from 1…100.
Quality
specifies the percentage size of the
JPEG 2000 image data compared to the size of the
uncompressed image, which the JPEG 2000 should
not exceed. For example, if an image with lossless
compression has only 50% the size of an uncompressed image,
a Quality
value between 50% and
100% produces no visible differences.
(JPEG 2000 only) Specifies the horizontal size of JPEG 2000 tiles. A JPEG 2000 image file
consists of juxtaposed tiles. If the value specified is 0
, the whole image merely
consists of one tile.
(JPEG 2000 only) Specifies the vertical size of JPEG 2000 tiles. A JPEG 2000 image file
consists of juxtaposed tiles. If the value specified is 0
, the whole image merely
consists of one tile.
Partitioning a JPEG 2000 in tiles accelerates encoding and decoding significantly and minimizes the amount of required memory during this time. The default value 256 makes a good compromise between speed and memory requirement.
A JPEG image (“example.jpg”) is created and rendered from the PostScript file (“example.ps”):
$ psrip -o RasterImageType=JPEG -i example.ps example
A PostScript job is printed onto a 10x15 inch Grayscale page and writes the result into a JPEG 2000 file (“example.jp2”):
$ psrip -o PrintColor=Grayscale -p 10,15 -o RasterImageType="JP2 " -i example.ps example
A PostScript job is printed onto a CMYK page using in-RIP separation:
$ psrip -o PrintColor=CMYK -o inripseparation -o SeparationOrder="Cyan,Magenta,Yellow,Black,HKS 12 E,Orange" -o SeparationColorNames="HKS 12 E,Orange" -o RasterImageType=TIFF -i example.ps example
Spot colors are “HKS 12 E” and “Orange”. Six output files
are created, one for each colorant specified by the
-o SeparationOrder
option.
A JPEG 2000 image file with the suffix “.jpf” (example.jpf) is created using Quality=20 and a Tile size of 128x128:
$ psrip -o RasterImageType="JP2 " -o RasterImageSuffix=.jpf -a "TileWidth=128,TileHeight=128" -o CompressQuality=20 -i example.ps example
Previews of your print jobs are only generated when printing from your application to a preview queue.
Start HELIOS Admin.
From the Printers
tab select File > New
.
In the Connection
pop-up menu select Print Preview
.
In the “Printer” window you can specify settings for the
Print Preview
connection. Fig. 4.1 shows suitable settings
that may be used for a typical “preview-then-print” workflow.
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, 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. Doubling the resolution (e.g. from 72 to 144 dpi) would quadruple the temporary disk space requirements.
The text quality in a preview queue is improved by applying a special font rendering technology.
This preference
allows switching between Excellent
, which improves the
text quality and that is the default setting, and Default
,
which has the advantage of faster rendering.
The path to the place where PrintPreview stores the
previews. A directory must be specified in order to use the
Create Folder for Each User
, Name Prefix
, and Notify
Program
options.
If this option is specified PrintPreview creates a subfolder
for each print job “owner” is created in the path, specified
by Directory
, where the print jobs are stored.
If the Send Notification
checkbox is activated, the “Print Preview”
interface reports events to all listening services.
Note that with the option Send Notification
activated, layouts are generated
if the target volume is configured to create layouts.
Name Prefix
lets you tag a prefix to your print job name. This
serves to identify the files that are coming from this specific
queue (in case you have several Print Preview
queues that
print to the same destination).
The Notify Program
option lets you enter a path that leads to
a specific host program. This program will be started automatically after printing has been
finished successfully. See pdfnotifyprog in 5 “Preferences”.
From the Compression
pop-up menu, you
can select None
, Zip
, JPEG (Low Quality,
Medium Quality, High Quality, Maximum Quality)
, and JPEG 2000
(Low Quality, Medium Quality, High Quality, Lossless)
.
For details on the JPEG
quality see the jpegquality
preference in 5 “Preferences”. We recommend specifying a compression
because otherwise the program will need about twice as much temporary
disk space during preview generation, and will create large preview
files as well. Zip
is a lossless compression method
and may therefore be the best choice. 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.
This option will include all separation plates in the preview file. In case you printed composite, the separation plates of the process colors are calculated by PrintPreview and added to the preview file.
This option will include the composite preview in the preview file. In case you have printed separations, the composite preview is calculated by PrintPreview and added to the preview file.
If you check both Include Separations
and Include Color
Preview
, your preview file will contain a set of separations
preview pages for each document page you have printed
(and additional preview pages for a print job with spot
colors).
If this option is selected, PrintPreview places a transparency mask in an optional PDF layer so the mask can
cross-fade the composite view. Of course this option makes only sense if a composite view is generated at all.
Therefore this option can only be selected if the Include Color Preview
option is activated.
Otherwise it will be grayed out. See 4.3 “Verifying PDF transparencies” for details.
If this option is selected, PrintPreview will place a transparency mask in its own separation in the PDF output. See 4.3 “Verifying PDF transparencies” for details.
This option makes the Print Preview
queue behave like an
in-RIP device. You may already define in the application
program to print in-RIP separations or define the output
color space by initializing the Print Preview
queue according to the instructions given in
A.4 “Using in-RIP separation with PrintPreview”. This option can remain active,
irrespective of whether or not you print in-RIP.
If this option is active, 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 wish to activate automatic forwarding, you must specify a Hold
Queue
and uncheck Suppress Forward to Hold Queue
(find more details and examples in 4.6 “Possible workflows”).
With this option specified, an info page is added to the PDF preview file which is generated by PrintPreview (Fig. 4.2).
Antialias
should remain checked if the preview files are
intended for viewing on a monitor. Antialias 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. Note that the Antialias
option
needs about 4 times more memory.
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 PrintPreview uses
the same PPD file information and the same fonts, that will
later be used for printing, for preview generation.
If you have not specified a Hold Queue
, HELIOS Admin will
prompt a message, asking you to select a PPD file for the
new preview queue.
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 (Fig. 4.3) shows an example environment with
several printer queues that use different PPD files.
In an environment like that illustrated in Fig. 4.3, 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.
To assign a new or different PPD file to any of your queues
use the Select PPD
option in the printer configuration menu.
This procedure is described in the HELIOS Base manual.
HELIOS Admin also allows displaying 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 check the used PPD, open the printer configuration
window and click the Edit PPD "<Name of PPD>"
button. The exact
file name of the PPD file is given in the line “NickName”.
For a description about how to define OPI settings for a
Print Preview
connection printer queue see the respective
chapters in the ImageServer and PDF HandShake manuals.
Activating Check ICC Profiles for Pictures
will induce the
OPI server to check whether all image profiles that have
been tagged to any of the image files are available. The server will automatically stop the print job
if a single profile is missing and issue a corresponding error message. If this
option is not active, OPI will execute all print jobs and use
standard profiles for color matching, whenever the correct
profile is missing, unless the input color space is the same as
the output color space, e.g. Image CMYK = Printer CMYK.
The Default Printer Profile
item lets you
choose the
correct profile for your output
device and, at the same time, serves to switch on color matching for this printer queue.
The pop-up menu contains four different options:
None
switches color matching off.
sRGB_IEC61966-2-1
may be selected if you want to “print” to a slide-recorder or if you use the “print to file” option or HELIOS
PDF HandShake to convert your documents into PDF.
Lab D65
is best-suited if you want to select a device-independent
output color space, e.g. if you send your documents to
different production sites.
Composite – Preserve colors
No color matching for composite print jobs; all colors are preserved.
The Browse...
button opens a dialog that lets you select a specific profile
This item will only be available if you have selected a default printer profile. Here you can select the correct profile for your proof printer.
This pop-up menu allows you to specify a default DeviceLink profile for color matching. DeviceLink profiles have a higher priority than standard ICC profiles, i.e. standard ICC profiles are overridden by DeviceLink profiles.
It does not make any sense to select a proof profile if you have chosen Lab D65
from the Default Printer Profile
pop-up menu. In that case,
you have not yet specified your output device and thus cannot
simulate it with a proof printer.
For a description about how to configure hold queues see the HELIOS Base manual.
By the composite view of a PDF document you cannot tell exactly if a transparent area is really made of PDF transparencies or if it is represented by a flattened image which resembles a transparent look. The majority of today’s PostScript RIPs are not able to handle PDF transparencies. Transparencies are generated e.g. by applications such as Apple’s “Keynote”.
To check whether or not a document contains PDF transparencies and where they are located, HELIOS PrintPreview’s new transparency options allow verifying a PDF document for transparencies when being printed to a HELIOS Print Preview queue. For this to work, some preferences must be set in HELIOS Admin:
In HELIOS Admin select the Printers
tab and highlight the
preview queue in the list you wish to print to. Then go to the
Printer
menu and select the Settings
entry.
In the Interface
tab (Fig. 4.4) activate the option
Add Transparency Mask Layer
or Add Transparency Mask Channel
.
Also activate the PDF Transparency
checkbox in the ICC
tab of the corresponding Print Preview
queue (see arrow in Fig. 4.5).
Add Transparency Mask Layer
will place a transparency mask
in an optional PDF layer so that the mask can cross-fade the
composite view. This option makes only sense if a composite view
is generated at all. Therefore the HELIOS Admin
option Add Transparency Mask Layer
can only be selected
if Include Color Preview
is activated.
Add Transparency Mask Channel
will create an additional
channel in the set of separations which displays all PDF
objects that contain transparencies.
Now the PDF document can be printed to the selected Print
Preview queue, e.g. with the HELIOS “pdfprint” tool. In
the following example -P
specifies the Print Preview queue
name (“ppv”), -p
the output page format (“pdf” = PDF page
size) and trans.pdf
the PDF document name.
Find a detailed description of “pdfprint” in the PDF HandShake manual.
$ pdfprint -P ppv -p pdf trans.pdf
After the print job has been processed it ends up in the hold queue (Fig. 4.6).
Acrobat displays the document’s composite view (Fig. 4.7). There are two ways to highlight all included PDF transparencies; as a mask in its own layer or in its own separation.
In Acrobat, choose the “Layers” tab and activate the “Transparency Mask” checkbox.
A mouse click in the field adjacent to the “Transparency Mask” entry (see arrow in Fig. 4.8) makes the transparency mask layer visible in the document, overlaying the composite view (Fig. 4.9).
It is also possible to display the transparency mask in its own separation.
Select the “Bookmarks” tab and click on the “Transparency Mask” separation icon (Fig. 4.10).
Double-click a preview queue in the Printers
tab to open
the job window, and to monitor the progress of the preview
generation (Fig. 4.11).
In case automatic forwarding to the hold queue has been specified, the print job will disappear from the preview queue after the preview generation and shows up in the hold queue again.
Double-click the hold queue in the Printers
tab
to access the preview file in the job
window (Fig. 4.12). The PDF icon in front of the file name
indicates that preview generation has been successful.
If Suppress Forward to Hold Queue
is 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 a PDF viewing application,
which must be installed on your system (you may also highlight the job
and choose File > Save As...
from the Admin
menu to save the PDF file for future use).
For security reasons, the access rights to preview files are restricted: Preview files are accessible as “root”, owner of the print job or member of an administration group. Otherwise, access will be denied!
The first page of a preview file is the info page (if included), which presents important information about the file, e.g. generation time, resolution, compression, ICC profiles used (see Fig. 4.2). The last three lines serve as a placeholder for your individual comments. If you are using Adobe Acrobat you can use the “TouchUp” text tool to enter a comment.
Fig. 4.13: Bookmarks section lists the composite preview page, corresponding separations, and spot color plates
In Acrobat’s “Bookmarks” section, 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 (Fig. 4.13). The page numbers in the table of contents are copied from the document you have printed – you will find e.g. 1, 2, 3 if you have printed pages 1 to 3. In case your application does not forward page counts correctly, PrintPreview will generate new page numbers for the table of contents.
Following the info page are the composite preview and the separations, for each document page, also illustrated in Fig. 4.13.
You can also use the Acrobat thumbnails for file navigation. An example is given in Fig. 4.14.
From an application, you can print either composite or separations. In a preview file, however, you can have both, the composite preview and the separation plates – independent of whether you have printed composite or separations. This means that PrintPreview has to derive one of the previews on its own: If you have printed separations, the composite preview has to be calculated by PrintPreview, and if you have printed composite, the separation plates have to be calculated by PrintPreview. For these calculations, PrintPreview must rely on the information that is sent by the application. If the information is 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 affect real printing.
See A “How applications cooperate with PrintPreview” for more information on this issue.
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!).
As on any other queue, specific initializations or trailers are recognized. See your Base documentation for details about how to define them.
PrintPreview usually 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.
PrintPreview usually 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.
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.
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 new preview queue and select the printer queue you
use for production from the Hold Queue
entry in the Connection
pop-up menu.
Suppress Forward to Hold Queue
must be turned off in the
settings dialog. Antialias
and
a Resolution
of 72 dpi are recommended because these
settings guarantee maximum legibility of the preview files on a monitor.
Save the settings in the “Printers” window. The preview queue will now
inherit the PPD file from the Hold Queue
you specified. This guarantees that the parameters used for preview generation
are identical to those used for production.
To activate color matching in your preview queue, open the
ICC
tab. 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
.
If you wish to check the preview file on different monitors,
you should select the standard sRGB_IEC61966-2-1
profile as Default Proof Profile
. This will turn out to be a
pretty good compromise.
ImageServer users may specify OPI settings in the upper part of the dialog. The configuration should be identical to the one chosen in the printer queue.
Set the printer queue you have chosen as Hold Queue
to Spool
Only
. This allows you to check the preview files before
printing is started.
Open the document you want to print and select the new preview queue for printing.
Open the preview queue’s job window to monitor the progress of preview generation (Fig. 4.11). 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 start the production.
Additional settings for backup purposes:
Usually, print jobs disappear after they have been printed. If you want to have them available for reproduction you should set up a hold queue for your printer queue, e.g. one that is called “hold”.
For a description about how to define settings for a hold queue see the respective chapter in the Base manual.
Open the printer settings dialog for your printer queue and
select the hold queue from the Hold Queue
pop-up menu
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 let the customer preview the PDF files, e.g. via HELIOS WebShare. The customer may also print them from their Acrobat application and then check the printouts.
In this example, assume that the customer’s proof printer is a color printer.
Create a hold queue, e.g. one that is called “hold”. 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.
Create a preview queue and select the hold queue from the
Hold Queue
pop-up menu.
Antialias
should be unchecked;
antialiasing makes documents
more legible on a monitor, but it is not suited for
printed previews.
150 dpi is a proper value for Resolution
,
because it guarantees good output results on an color printer.
We strongly recommend to specify a
Compression
. Otherwise, with a resolution of 150 dpi, preview
generation will need much disk space. Moreover, compressed preview
files are smaller and can be exchanged more easily.
Save the settings in the Printers
tab. The preview queue will now
inherit the PPD file from the hold queue.
Whenever you gather preview files in 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 (Fig. 4.3).
Now, set up color matching on the preview queue.
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 color printer (or of any other proof
printer that your customer may use).
ImageServer users may specify OPI settings in the upper
section of the OPI
settings dialog,
if required. The configuration should be identical to the one
on the printer queue you will later use for production.
Open the document you want to print and select the new preview queue for printing.
Open the preview queue’s job window to monitor the
progress of preview generation. Then, open the hold
queue’s job window. The new PDF preview file 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 or WebShare. Tell your customer to print the files to the color printer and to check the printouts.
Alternative settings for preparing the file exchange:
In the Print Preview
printer queue setup in HELIOS Admin,
the item Directory
can be specified to save the files to a
directory accessible to users via EtherShare, PCShare or
WebShare. Further processing can be automated via the
Notify Program
option or using Script Server (see ImageServer manual).
Usually, PDF HandShake and PrintPreview only support PostScript printers, meaning that printing requires a PostScript device on the output side. With PrintPreview, you can bypass this requirement because printing to a preview queue means printing into a PDF file. The newly created PDF files can be printed again from any Acrobat application on any platform; and Acrobat supports different devices, especially non-PostScript printers. The following example describes how you can produce high-quality color printouts on a non-PostScript inkjet printer. This workflow is meant for customers who have a proof printer – or for customers who want to use their inkjet printer as final output device. In the latter case, see 4.6.4 “ Inkjet printer as final output device” at the end of this chapter.
Create a preview queue as described in 4.2.1 “Set up a preview queue”.
Include Separations
should be turned off because printing separations on an inkjet
color printer would not make any sense.
Antialias
should be turned
off as well; antialiasing makes documents more legible on a
monitor, but it is not meant for printing.
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.
We strongly recommend to specify a Compression
.
Otherwise, with a resolution of 360 dpi, preview generation would need much disk space.
Save the “Printers” settings and select a PPD file. We have tested this workflow with the “Acrobat Distiller” and the “Apple Color LaserWriter 12/600” PPD file. Both PPD files produce correct results. So you should specify one of them, even though you do not print to a PostScript device in the end.
Now, set up color matching on the preview queue.
The Default Printer
Profile
must be the same profile that is specified in the
queue you will later use for production.
The Default Proof Profile
should either be a generic RGB profile (e.g. from the Mac OS X
system software) or an RGB profile which came with the inkjet
printer you use for proof purposes. Make sure that the proof
profile is an RGB profile.
ImageServer users may specify OPI settings in the upper
section of the OPI
settings dialog, if required.
Open the document you wish to print and print composite to the new preview queue.
After preview generation, open the preview file from the hold queue’s job window.
Select the inkjet printer as default printer, and print the PDF preview file from your Acrobat or Adobe Reader application.
After checking the proof printout from your inkjet printer, you can move the job to your production queue.
In case the inkjet printer is your production device, you
should choose a suitable profile, e.g. the profile which came
with the inkjet printer, as Default Printer Profile
on your
preview queue. A Default Proof Profile
is not required. All
other settings and steps are identical to those described
above.
You can obtain a correct proof using PrintPreview, using host-based separations:
Create a PDF 1.3 (or higher) file from your composite PostScript job resolved by ImageServer (easily done via the PDF HandShake “Create PDF Server” feature). Then print a host-based separation of the PDF file using PDF HandShake (via Acrobat plug-in, Hot Folder, “pdfprint” tool or PDF Internet Printing) into a Print Preview queue.
PrintPreview will recombine the separations into a color matched composite preview, plus the set of grayscale separations for all needed colors. These separations include all information including correct overprinting and knockouting, correct spot colors derived from DeviceN PostScript, and exisiting trapping and color information. If you approve the results, you can generate the final output:
Print the PDF document with in-RIP separations to your final output device, using PDF HandShake.