Problems printing to a Xerox Phaser 7700 (colour laser) 1

[Eggles]

I finally got connected to the Xerox colour laser at work today - but it will not print my file from Pagemaker, created as a A3 double-sided spread. Although equipped to handle A3 paper (420mm x 297mm) it automatically shrunk the page down to A4 (210mm x 297mm).

I know there are several places one has to specify the printer settings (two in PM itself, and one under the Printer Properties in the Control Panel of Windows) but I am at a loss to know what else to try. It will print from A4 PM docs, and also print A3 docs from Word, but not PM. Anyone here ever used one of these printers and can advise me?

 

[viol8ion]

In your printer options when you select File>Print you should have an option to shrink to fit, etc... have you checked there? When in doubt, deny all terms and defnitions.

http://www.wuli.com

 

[Eggles]

Yep - there were three of us (me, a GD and a tech) checking every single menu option. The printer has four document trays - in our setup, the upper two contain A3 paper, the lower two have A4. In the Print options in Pagemaker, once the printer is selected there is supposed to be a drop down list of which tray you choose to use, but there is only one choice (labelled, ironically, 'OnlyOne'). It is necessary to change the tray to which the printer prints by going into the Control Panel Printer Settings, where if you click on the printer's properties, you can see the four trays and select the appropriate one (a very **odd** arrangement).

The other two GDs at my work use PDF or Illustrator to print to an A3 size, so we know it can work. But I want to show them it is possible from Pagemaker, so we can start using a proper dedicated layout app. (the grumpy one who is curently on leave for another week or so is the one who uses Illustrator for all page layout). When the people set up the new printer after it arrived a few weeks ago, they were grumbling then about PM being difficult to gewt it to work. What gives here? A very expensive colour laser unable to print from a popular page layout program. Ridiculous!! I will be contacting Xerox on Monday and demanding they come out and get it working with PM.

I couldn't even get my PM document to PDF. I could get it as far as a postscript file, but the distillation stalled due to that 'Helvetica' error I recall reading about elsewhere recently. I have all flavours of Helvetica installed on my computer, although it is not used in the PM document. What gives here?

 

[viol8ion]

What version of PM and what OS? Not that it would really make any difference, or at least it shouldn't.

This does seem like a Xerox problem. We use Canon at work, and it is easy for me to select the paper size.. File>Print select Setup, and then Page Size. I have all options from 11 X 17 to statement, A3 to B4. What happens if you select A3 from PM in this manner? Is there an option to "fit to page"? If so, uncheck that option.

When in doubt, deny all terms and defnitions.

http://www.wuli.com

 

[Eggles]

I FINALLY discovered what the problem was (or should I say, solution) after reading everything I could on both the Adobe and the Xerox sites. It appears as though the PPD for the Xerox must also be copied to another directory for Pagemaker to work properly (unlike the rest of the Adobe suite). I found that little gem hidden away (if I recall correctly) in the Help files of PM.

So once the PPD was copied to the right folder, I could duplex print. The only problem now seems to be orientation of the pages. I had two A3 sides to print back-to-back. Using the normal layout and, from the printer setup, choosing what I believed from the diagrams provided was the correct imposition (I'm not at work right now so can't recall the exact phrase, but it was something like 'short edge') the back side printed upside down. Only after rotating the back page in the PM layout (so that everything was upside down on screen) was the duplexing done correctly.

I will have to try and work this glitch out now! (but I am sooo pleased to have got the Xerox printing from PM).

 

[viol8ion]

>So once the PPD was copied to the right folder

Duh.. sorry, I should have figured that one out sooner. I have problems figuring out imposition to our Canons, and usually end up printing something wrong once a week. Glad you fixed it!

I gave your post a star so people will know this question has a solution! When in doubt, deny all terms and defnitions.

http://www.wuli.com

 

[Eggles]

My goodness - everything is working!! I finally figured out how to get the imposition right (what PM calls short edge) and I was able to PDF the document as well. One small step for Eggles....