Postscript Printer Driver 2

[mericat]

Me again! (So many problems, so little time)

I have created an 8 page document in PM which I want my remote bosses to approve who don't have PM on their systems. I have tried to export it as an adobe pdf, but it is saying...

Exporting a pdf file requires a postscript printer driver, please install one.

Help please! I have only a HP Laserjet 3150 printer combi scanner fax thing and that is not a postscript printer is it?

I did try to install some drivers when I installed Adobe, but it did not recognise my printer and I had to reinstall the printer disk.

Your help would be much appreciated. Please excuse my relative stupidity

 

[viol8ion]

mericat

Print out a test page to your printer by going to Start>Settings>Printers and opening properties of printer, click on print test page. The test page will tell you if the printer is PS (it will have adobe logo) or PS clone. I suspect it is neither.

In that case, use your windows disk and install a PS printer driver. You do not need to have a printer hooked up. Or install the Adobe ones formt he PM disk. Reboot and you should be all set.

My recommendation is not not use the Export feature. Use the new printer driver when you select yourprinter. Now you don't have a printer, but you select where it says to "write to postscript file" and your Print button now says SAVE. Click that and you are now printing the entire document to a file that will end in .ps.

Now you open Adobe Distiller, and make these settings:

General tab: Default resolution 600 dpi

Compression tab:
-Check "Compress text and line art."
-Color Bitmap Images: Check Downsample, set to 150 dpi, check Auto Compression, select JPEG Med
-Grayscale Bitmap Images: Check Downsample, set to 150 dpi, check Auto Compression, select JPEG Med
-Monochrome Bitmap Images: Check Downsample, set to 300 dpi

Font Embedding tab: Check "Embed All Fonts." Check Subset, and set to 99%. Remove anything that might be in the Never Embed list.

Advanced tab: Check Convert CMYK to RGB

Now you click Open and your .ps document and it will make a PDF.

Hope this helps. When in doubt, deny all terms and defnitions.

http://www.wuli.com

 

[Guest_imported]

I am running PM on XP with a Laser Jet 5000 printer that is postscript but cannot find a ps driver that will work. Help. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

 

[viol8ion]

The manufacturer of the printer should have updated drivers ontheir website... do a search there first. Also make sure you get the latest PPDs from Adobe.com website. When in doubt, deny all terms and defnitions.

http://www.wuli.com

 

[Eggles]

droon

If your real printer is a postscript printer, you should be able to use its driver to generate the postscript file. i.e. as already descibed, when you go to print, select your PS printer as your priunter, but instead of clicking the 'Print' button, check the little box that says 'Orint to File'. This will save your PM publication as a postscript file (yourfile.ps). I usually save it to the desktop to make it easy to find for distilling, and once you have made the PDF, there is no need to keep the PS file.

To convert it to PDF, you need to open Distiller (which comes with most versions of Pagemaker) and from there, open the postscript file. Depending on your version of Distiller, you need to ensure the settings you choose are appropriate for the intended output e.g. if you have V5, the 'Press' settings are the highest rez and designed for sending out to be commerically printed; the 'Print' settings are medium rez and designed for printing on your desktop printer (laser or inkjet) and the 'Screen' settings ae low rez and designed for onscreen viewing only. Earlier versions of Distiller used a different naming system.

viol8ion - in your reply, you stated 'Check Subset, and set to 99%'. I have often wondered - why 99% and not 100%?

 

[Eggles]

sorry for all the typos.

 

[viol8ion]

>>you stated 'Check Subset, and set to 99%'. I have often wondered - why 99% and not 100%?<<

Actually, I have never had problems with that at all, but some of the gurus that answer my problem questions recommend that as the safest default, and they swear it eliminates problems with TT fonts during distilling. When in doubt, deny all terms and defnitions.

http://www.wuli.com

 

[Eggles]

Oh - OK.

Where are you? I am in Australia and it's unusual to have responses to my posts so quickly if you are in the US. (It is just after 11.00pm here in Melbourne).

 

[viol8ion]

I am east coast of the USA. New Jersey. I have a friend in Brisbane, time difference makes chatting difficult... I get home from work and she is just waking up and getting ready to go to work...

When in doubt, deny all terms and defnitions.

http://www.wuli.com

 

[viol8ion]

Eggles..

I finally found some reasons for your question on a previous post in this thread:

>>viol8ion - in your reply, you stated 'Check Subset, and set to 99%'. I have often wondered - why 99% and not 100%?<<

I don't know why 99 and not 100, but I know that 35% is a standard. The following is an article I found:

>> We had several queries about our &quot;subset 99%&quot; advice for ensuring fonts from PDFs carry through to printing, and especially magesetting. It also spawned a discussion on the PageMaker List.

Typical was the comment &quot;it does not have to be 99%...you only need high percentages if you plan to do minor editing to the text in the pdf file after it is distilled (and if you don't have the full Exchange software, you can't do that anyway). We use subset at 35%.&quot;

We answered: But what happens if you use more more than 35 percent of a font in any job? -- Distiller will embed the whole of the font with its real name. If a font by that name exists on the RIP or system from which you are finally printing, THAT font will be used, not your embedded font.

If you are, for example, transferring from a PC to a Mac, or the font on the destination system is slightly different from the one you have embedded, you could have problems.

If you pick, the 99% subset option, the font will be embedded with a prefix to the font name, i.e. a name which can not exist on the destination system. And so your embedded font will be used.

So, you'll have a larger file (still small in comparison to a full postscript file) but you'll have guaranteed font results with Embed all fonts on and subsetting set to 99%.<<

It helps to understand a little of the reasoning behind what we do, eh? When in doubt, deny all terms and defnitions.

http://www.wuli.com

 

[Eggles]

Thanks for the followup - I am still unsure I understand it all, but I think it sort of makes sense.

 

[viol8ion]

Apparently what is being done is the entire font is being included with 99%. At 35% there is a chance that Mac or the RIP will substitute fonts of a similar name but different in specification, changing the document. 99% ensure the entire font is included in the doc. Personally I have never experienced a problem when I used 35%. And it looks like 100 is not even an option. I am not geeky enough to understand it in that much detail!

cheers When in doubt, deny all terms and defnitions.

http://www.wuli.com

 

[mericat]

Viol8in - Wahay! Done it. I hadn't had chance before, I am so pleased now, this will make all the difference in the world. Thank you. xx Please excuse my relative stupidity