Blurry text problem

[Chris_Petty@adobeforums.com]

I'm running InDesign CS on a fast XP Pro machine, connected to a Magicolour 6100 laser printer. When I print, text of all sizes prints with a large dot pattern, making it blurry to the unaided eye. This occurs even when I print to a postscript file and process through Distiller and print through Acrobat. Through a lupe, the dot structure is like that of a photo or graphic.

This ONLY HAPPENS WITH INDESIGN! Quark, PhotoShop, Illustrator, PageMaker, Word, etc., all print text sharply, with no discernable dot pattern, from both native and postscripted files.

I've messed around with every available option in the various print menus, printed in black and white, etc., etc.

Does anyone have a fix for this problem? I need to print some invitations quickly, and don't want to have to go to a service bureau.

[mikewitherell_at_jetsetcom_dot_net]

Is color management on? Try turning it off. Or if its off, turn it on to US Prepress defaults and change the cmyk web swop to sheetfed, if sheetfed is your cmyk press.

In the print dialog, make sure of the output color model you are feeding to that magicolor printer. You will have to look it up in the printer's manual, but should you feed it RGB, or CMYK data?

Just a few thoughts,

Mike Witherell in Washington DC

[Chris_Petty@adobeforums.com]

Thanks, Mike. Colour management off makes for a much smaller dot pattern (though still visible), but overprints magenta on random lines of text, making them look bold. I'm wondering if InDesign has infected my printer with Adobeosis, a rare malady associated with mutated code found in some Adobe products.

The print output dialogue box in InDesign shows only RGB as an option, even though this printer is cmyk. I'll have to investigate further, though it is still exclusively an InDesign problem.

[George_Bilalis@adobeforums.com]

The print output dialogue box in InDesign shows only RGB as an option,
even though this printer is cmyk.




It has also to be a postscript printer besides using CMYK inks. Is it?

rgrds
George

[Guy_Smiley@adobeforums.com]

[email]Chris_Petty@adobeforums.com[/email] wrote in
news:3bb44d9d.-1@webx.la2eafNXanI:

> I'm running InDesign CS on a fast XP Pro machine, connected to a
> Magicolour 6100 laser printer. When I print, text of all sizes
> prints with a large dot pattern, making it blurry to the unaided
> eye.

The Magicolor is a non-PostScript RGB printer. You need to make sure
that the text you set in InDesign is RGB black and not CMYK black.

[Chris_Petty@adobeforums.com]

The Magicolour is actually a non-postscript cmyk printer. I reset the text black to rgb, but that didn't help, either.

As far as the postscript thing goes, I know if I print a native Quark (or InDesign, etc.) file with an eps image in it, it doesn't print properly. If I pdf the file through a postscript driver, then print through Acrobat, it prints in full eps glory.

This text thing has me stumped, though. How do I get clean type output in InDesign?

[George_Bilalis@adobeforums.com]

If you need 'black' text, why don't you simply set the check box "Text as Black" in the output tab of the print dialog? Then it's for the RGB printer to do it for you. (Print a solid black out of RGB driver driving a CMYK set of inks)

rgrds
George

[Stacy_Fontenot_-_NSU@adobeforums.com]

I had this same problem, different printer, after doing some Total Training and had adjusted the Color Management. When I disabled Color Management, all my text went back to the smooth black without a half tone pattern.
Stacy

[Chris_Petty@adobeforums.com]

Checking the 'text as black' box was the first thing I did, and it made no difference to the halftone effect of the text printout. I also disabled colour management, and while it improved things a little, the dot pattern was still visible.

I also printed to a postscript driver, then pdf'ed the file, then sent the pdf to an actual postscript printer for output. Dots still there.

I'm wracking my brains over this, certain I've missed something stupid (like the 'text as black' box), but can't come up with anything. This might mean I'll have to go back to Quark, which I don't want to, but at least Quark doesn't have this problem.

[George_Bilalis@adobeforums.com]

This might mean I'll have to go back to Quark, which I don't want to,
but at least Quark doesn't have this problem.




Neither ID has it. You should check again your workflow.

rgrds
George