Hi everybody
Sorry, I hope you will apologize my bad english: I'm french....
I use since 1998 a Viper 1.91 - 1.92 with first an Agfa Proset 9800 and yet a Proset 9836, and I have three informations to give to you:
First about calibration. I use a "transfer resource" that works fine (since I have downloaded the X-FER patch...) with 120 lpi, 133 lpi and 150 lpi screens, positive and negative, with less than 2% of error (I always use 2400 dpi resolution).
Before I found the patch, I used the Halftone Linked Transfer... this is very efficient but very hard to use, as you need to make a calibration curve for each color, each resolution, each screen lining in positive mode, and you need to do the same again for negative mode... that's a long job.
But there is a problem: this calibration is so efficient that it runs over all other possible curves, including the 2-colors Photoshop mode curves, that can no more been use.
Second: somebody were worrying about a problem of the square dots instead of round dots: that's normal!!! The Agfa round dot screen has round dots ONLY in low densities (black dots) and high densities (white dots), in the middle densities the dots are almost squared, and are (theorically) perfectly squared at 50% density.
Third: the PPD... As everybody, when first using XPress 4, I had much troubles with the original PPD supplied with my Viper, and I had to use the "new" Quark PPD for Agfa Imagesetters. This PPD are 4.2 release, and work fine with both 9800 and 9836, printing from XPress 4 and 5) and InDesign (1, 1.5 and 2).
On March 2003, I bought a new G4 with OS X.2 and I had much troubles as the 4.2 PPD didn't work. I don't exactly remember the problem, but it was impossible to setup my 9836 in the print center. Reading this forum, shows me that I'm not alone to have this problem.
I'll not explain exactly how I did, but I found a bug in the 9836 PPD, and after I corrected it, this PPD worked perfectly under OS 10.2 with InDesign 2 (still yet with CS). With XPress, there is one trouble: the centering of the printing in the film width doesn't work, so I have to set a shift of 1 or 2 mm to print the XPress informations on the top of my A4 pages printed landscape...
This bug exists not only in the 9836 PPD, but also in all the 4.2 Agfa PPD released for XPress 4...
The Adobe PPDs that can be downloaded using the link given in the forum are a good solution, but only if you have a "recent" imagesetter: Accuset, Avantra, Selecset, Polaris and may be other PPDs are 4.3 PPDs and will work fine with OS X, but Proset PPDs are only old 4.0 PPD that will not work.
For all those who like adventure and thrilling and have an old Proset, the bug is easy to fix: it is simply a wrong place of a command-line in the PPD, that doesn't allow to close a group correctly (the AgfaScreening group).
1) open the PPD with Word (I use 2001 for Mac, running on my second Mac)
2) locate the line:
*CloseGroup: AgfaScreening
(just before *%===== Agfa Modules =======================================)
3) cut the complete line "*CloseGroup: AgfaScreening"
4) locate the line:
*CloseUI: *AgfaDoLinkXfer
(in the *%===== Screenfilter Settings ============================== group)
5) paste the line "*CloseGroup: AgfaScreening" between "*CloseUI: *AgfaDoLinkXfer" and "*OpenGroup: AgfaRulingSettings/Ruling Settings", with one "enter" before and one "enter" after.
You should get:
*AgfaDoLinkXfer False/Auto Linking Off: "false AGFADict /SetLinkXfer get exec"
*CloseUI: *AgfaDoLinkXfer
*CloseGroup: AgfaScreening
*OpenGroup: AgfaRulingSettings/Ruling Settings
*OpenUI *AgfaRuleUse/Ruling Definition: PickOne"
6) save the file with another name (I simply add X at the end), keeping the "Text only" file-format, and use it as PPD for your Proset. This modified PPD also works with Classic.
This bug is very easy to find, I don't understand how the Agfa programmers didn't see it...
I hope that this informations will be helpfull...
Claude