Hey, I’m very pleased with my S9000 large format Canon Inkjet printer, but I cannot (of course) print anything from Quark, which I prefer for layout. Does anyone have any Software RIP they can recommend so I can print something other than the Quark preview? Am I correct in stating that Illustrator, Photoshop (In Design?) have some semblence of a RIP built in so I can print from them with satisfactory results? Why not Quark? Thanks in advance.
I usally create a pdf for printing since I use a pc at home and the school printers are connected to macs. I have yet to be able to open a pc quark file on a mac and visa versa.
What version of Quark. If Quark 6 you don’t need to create a postscript first then distill into pdf. Earlier versions of quark you do.
I just started using Indesign this weekend. Much more stable that Quark. Quark is loosing market share fast these days.
My experience is that you need a postscript RIP. Quark 4 will give issues because it uses files containing .EPS. I use an HP Deskjet 1220c (not the best printer) and so I have to Print to .pdf using the HP Color Laser then print the .pdf to the inkjet. Not the best choice either. Make sure you do not res down your images in the print to .pdf dialog. If you do you will lose image quality. Similar to what I’m sure laureng does.
Another long way around is “Save Page as .EPS”… open the page in Illustrator and save it as an .AI then print the .AI file
Our printer will not print the .EPS format correctly but it will print .AI files perfectly. Go figure.
I’ll have to keep an eye on this post to see who has more options… hopefully the correct options. Not sure I’m doing it right but it gets me by.
Yes is correct although I wouldn’t recommend printing from Illustrator especially if you have transparencies.
That’s true about the transparencies… pdfs have a doozie of a time with them too… It would be nice if printer software kept up with design software.
Well, it’s looking more and more like a software RIP is the way to go, especially if I want to continue to work in Quark, but from what I’ve read it will speed up the whole printing process (and accuracy too, of course), especially printing big Illustrator files, etc. If anyone has any experience with a software RIP, please let me know! So far, IProof (at only $269) is the cheapest by far. Ouch.
Thanks again,
gaygaruda
After much introspection I purchased a Software RIP from iproofsystems.com specifically written for the Canon S9000. It was $269 with a student discount, but if you have an older RIP you can show them a scan / fax of the instruction manuel, CD, etc. for another $50 discount. It is amazing the difference in quality, specifically when printing directly from Quark. It also has a built in PDF writer as well. After a couple of hours of playing around with it, I’m very pleased. I hope this helps someone out there.
Stoked everything worked out for you. I’ll have to look into the iProof software. Thanks for the update.