Printing to .ps files

[JohnO@adobeforums.com]

Suddenly, nobody in our office can print to a .ps file from ID 2. After 90
minutes of panicked troubleshooting, I found that if I attempt to print to a
file from ID 2.0.2 (Win 2k), using any printer/ppd, and aim the ps/prn file
at the same folder holding the indd or indb file, I get:

Printer Error: Problem initializing the current printer. Check the system
Print settings.

If I aim the .ps file somewhere else, it works. If I use Win XP, it works.
Something had become broken here, either in Win 2k or ID. Any ideas?

-John O

[mikewitherell_at_jetsetcom_dot_net]

John,

Sounds like a win2k thing. May I ask, why are you making .ps files?

Mike Witherell

[JohnO@adobeforums.com]

> May I ask, why are you making .ps files?

No!! :-)

But I'll ask our printer about this again tomorrow.

-John O

[mikewitherell_at_jetsetcom_dot_net]

Aw, you know I was going to launch into a tirade, didn't you? -- Mike

[Gabriel_Ayala@adobeforums.com]

Aw, you know I was going to launch into a tirade, didn't you?




Go ahead Mike, I want to listen cause I might learn something. My predecessor always printed to .PS when he completed a project. Why is this useful anyway? I never do it.

[M_Blackburn@adobeforums.com]

I always print to a postscript file when preparing press-ready PDFs. I don't like the export to PDF feature (had too many complaints). I print directly to distiller for proofs and use the two-step ps-file/distill for final. Wasn't a postscript print file the preferred method for sending a job to print in the early days of DTP (though I always sent live files)?

What sort of trireme were you going to launch, Mike?

[JohnO@adobeforums.com]

With PM, the most reliable way to generate pdf's was to manually create a
..ps, then distill to pdf.

Since we moved to ID and started work with this new printer, they gave us a
ppd that generates .ps files that are just right for them, then we use a
..joboptions file they provided to make the pdf. I suspect the printer
doesn't want to mess with making application-specific and possibly even
version-specific configs for every dot release or every app their customers
use. So, the ppd and .joboptions files work for everybody, regardless their
dtp or design tool.

BTW, my printing to a file problem exists ONLY in ID, and with both ID 2 and
ID CS. I can save to a ps file from Acrobat, PS, Illo, Word, everything BUT
ID, in Win 2k SP-4. Me and four others here have the same problem. Local
drive/folders, too.

This makes two annoying ID problems this week. Then there's the moronic My
Documents default Save As, the time change lunacy, and the lack of a back
save...all of which are problems right now. I'm not very high on ID this
week. Whew.

-John O

[Robert_Levine@adobeforums.com]

> With PM, the most reliable way to generate pdf's was to manually create a

> .ps, then distill to pdf.

Now you know that's not fair. Shall we now list all the things in ID
that are better than PM? <g>

That said, you already have a workaround. Don't print postscript to that
folder. This type of work is always about workarounds and this is no
different.

One more question, have you tried bumping one of those Win2K machines up
to SP 6 to see if that fixes anything?

Bob

[JohnO@adobeforums.com]

Nah, Gabriel was just asking why do a .ps file, that's all. The frustrating
part is that I know this worked before, which is why it took so much time to
troubleshoot. Suddenly, it's broken.

SP-6? Hmm, I'll give that a try.

-John O

[mikewitherell_at_jetsetcom_dot_net]

What is a trireme? Isn't that an ancient roman warship? I don't get it!

Mike Witherell

[Gabriel_Ayala@adobeforums.com]

Now you know that's not fair. Shall we now list all the things in ID that
are better than PM?




Just for pleasure, why the heck not. Here is a list Sandy Johnson posted. It doesn't list all the things that are better but it covers a lot of things. Fair enough?

(This list was compiled from the InDesign features list from Adobe and user input on forum threads.)

REASONS TO SWITCH TO INDESIGN

Navigation

1. No more turning pages, scroll down like Acrobat or Quark
2. Supports scroll on mouse
3. Unlimited undos, redos, and everything is undoable
4. Opens Quark and PageMaker files directly, no separate converter
5. Customize keyboard shortcuts
6. Collapsible palettes dock to sides
7. Custom slug area off page to add info/approval slugs
8. Custom pasteboard size
9. Save specific palettes in custom workspaces and switch workspaces at will
10. Fast, reliable one-step PDF creation
11. Enhanced PDF support for bookmarks, buttons and embedded movie/audio files
12. Simpler scripting, supports Visual Basic and Apple Script
13. Better integration with other Adobe products, consistent quick keys

Color & Objects

1. Eyedropper tool samples color from placed tiffs
2. Deleting color swatch allows replacement of any color
3. Gradient tool works like Illustrator
4. Bezier tool draws curved and intersected paths, compound paths
5. Pathfinder tool with add, subtract, intersect, exclude
6. Freehand pencil tool, eraser
7. Place dialog box includes thumbnail previews of images
8. Info palette displays image original and effective resolution, color mode, file type, stroke and fill
9. Stroke can be applied to objects without placing into a frame or creating keyline
10. Stroke can be applied to inside, outside or center
11. Can create soft drop shadows
12. Can feather edges of images
13. Can apply transparency with Photoshop effects
14. Transparency preview allows for adjustment of transparent and rasterized objects
15. Place PSD files with transparent layers and alpha channels
16. Use any Photoshop path to clip image
17. Separation previews for each plate, including overprint and knockout info
18. Mixed ink support and mixed ink palettes for spot color jobs
19. Supports DCS files and spot channels
20. Full postscript interpreter renders EPS files clearly, even to non-ps printers

Type

1. Double-clicking text box inserts cursor
2. Control+clicking text box changes to selection movement
3. Interactively scale and distort text by control+dragging corners
4. Placing Word docs no longer imports Auto color
5. Built in table editor
6. Directly import Word or Excel tables and cells
7. Hyphenation slider gives control to amount of hyphenation in a story
8. Paragraph composer best hyphenates paragraphs as a whole, or by sentence
9. Supports custom dictionaries and hyphenation exceptions. Choose external user dictionary, word list stored in document, or both.
10. Includes and supports Open Type Pro fonts for ligatures, small caps, all fractions
11. Optical justification including punctuation, and optical baseline shift of parentheses/brackets for all caps
12. Use font metrics or optical kerning
13. Story editor added to version CS
14. Nested style sheets allow character style and strokes to portions of a paragraph
15. Removed unused styles without a script
16. Supports extended character set and Open Type fonts beyond ANSI 255
17. Create custom glyph sets from different fonts
18. Multi-column text frames
19. Can set type on a path
20. Type can be converted to outlines
21. Text wrap can follow an image’s path or detect edges, and can be overridden
22. Info palette displays character and word count
23. Map XML tags to style sheets
24. Font names include TT or T1 to avoid conflicts
25. Quark-like keyboard shortcuts to adjust leading, kerning, baseline shift
26. Assignable keyboard shortcuts for style sheets
27. No more pseudo bolds or italics
28. Gradients and strokes of any color or can be applied to type
29. Better drop cap management

[Gabriel_Ayala@adobeforums.com]

What is a trireme? Isn't that an ancient roman warship?




It's tirade not trireme. In case you don't know what tirade means it's something like a lecture, sermon, critisizm or a scolding.

[mikewitherell_at_jetsetcom_dot_net]

Gabe,

You're not keeping up with this thread, me fellow.

[Gabriel_Ayala@adobeforums.com]

LOL I guess not. What did I miss? I thought I read everything. :/

[JohnO@adobeforums.com]

> LOL I guess not. What did I miss? I thought I read everything. :/

Printing to .ps then to pdf is a bit of an anathema these days. So, I'm
trying to head off Bob and Mike W from telling me my printer is a dinosaur
and that my workflow has extraneous steps. :-)

FWIW, this problem seems limited to Win 2k...XP and 98 are fine.

-John O

[Gabriel_Ayala@adobeforums.com]

Thanks for taking the time to explain that amigo.

[mikewitherell_at_jetsetcom_dot_net]

Oh, M Blackburn, I finally get it! Launch a trireme! Very droll wordplay! Tip of the hat to you on that one.

JohnO, I haven't had that difficulty with Win2k, or any version of Windows, so I can't offer anything there.

I will recommend this: The Adobe publication called Print Service Provider Toolkit has an exhaustive discussion about printing to a PostScript File coupled with various PPDs, etc. and it discusses the various pros, cons, and implications of being device independent or not. Deep, dull reading starts on page 44 of the book and is summarized on page 50.

Mike Witherell in Washington DC

[Ken_Grace@adobeforums.com]

Bob:

Win2K SP6???

k

[Robert_Levine@adobeforums.com]

Yikes! Sorry about that. I read and typed too fast.

SP 4 is the latest and greatest.

Bob

[Ken_Grace@adobeforums.com]

Thanks Bob. I leave Microsoft to tell me what I need. I just thought they
might have forgotten about me.

k