[brianhagen]

I'm trying to set up my home system so I can put together my advertising portfolio and Im having some problems printing within Quark and using my Epson C80 printer.

I have several Quark files that I want to print out at the highest quality on the C80. Unfortunatley Quark is asking for a PPD file, which I don't have nor can I find for the Epson c80. I tried printing with default settings and the printout was low res and pretty much crap.

What is my best option for getting the best quality printout from the my Quark files on the c80? Is there something Im doing wrong? Should I try just making PDFs of my quark files and print from Acrobat (ive had mixed results so far) or is there some third party software I can use?

Im using Quark 5 (in Classic) and Quark 6 (In OSX), I have the latest Epson drivers loaed. I found a program called GIMP print, but heck if I know what that does OR how to use it!

ANY help would be appreciated. My company just filled Chapter 7 and now I need to find a paycheck!

THank you for any help you can give.

[art_director]

printer gimp is built into panther. have you upgraded to that yet?

[brianhagen]

Im using OSX 10.3.4 and as of this morning the computer can't even "communicate" with the printer anymore!

When I send something to print, the head resets (moves) and i then get a "communications error". Why must this be so cryptic!

[Macola]

You won't get anything except low-res previews of embedded graphics when printing from Quark to a non-Postscript printer. Your best bet is to output a PDF and print that instead.

[brianhagen]

Thanks for the help! Are there any specific settings I should use when I make the PDF in Quark?

Heres another strange thing...

In Quark 6, when i go into PRINT, i can't select any printer under Setup : Printer Description. In fact, I can't even select Printer Description (its greyed). So I cannot select my Epson or any printer.

So i figure its cause I don't have the PPD, but when I go under UTILITIES : PPD Manager it is listed and checked (along with a bunch others!)

You may be thinking "so what.. your gonna make PDF's anyway!" but heres the rub.. if I EXPORT as a PDF, the documents default to landscape 8 1/2X11 (even if the real document is 11x17) and it cuts off anything that doesn't fit in 8.5 x 11. Since i can't select a printer, i can't fix this bug. (of course, if I "print to PDF" instead it works (huh!?) fine with no cutoff. But something tells me this PDF is less quality because I hadn't select ACROBAT as the printer description (or anything else.. since I cant! its grey)

If you got this far in this post and you understand..your a power user im sure! Any ideas of what im doing wrong?

[bluedog]

Try using a postscript driver as your default printer either in classic or in OSX. The PDF export NEEDS a postscript driver to create the .ps file to be passed to Acrobat Distiller.

1. Switch your default printer in OSX and in Classic (or whichever you are using for Quark) to a postscript driver. Or if you have the Acrobat Distiller option as a printer (depending on your environment and installation).

2. Do your Document/Print/Page Setup setting changes in Quark BEFORE doing the export to PDF.

3. Export to PDF.

4. Switch back to your C80 in OSX.

5. Open your PDF and print.

Acrobat has some strange settings to mimic CMYK and other calibration settings that may actually shift the colors from what you would expect. If you are using the correct color profiles you may want to try printing from the PDF with and without making changes in the Proof Setup section (see the VIEW menu in Acrobat).

I've had solid magenta come out with muddy color because it was simulating some other press conditions or had the wrong profile before. Once you get your settings right, you should be fine.

[brianhagen]

Blue..

On step 1: do you mean in Quark or in Printer Setup Utility (under hardware)

If you mean Quark- I can't select ANY printers under Printer Description. None! The menu is greyed out and unselectable.

If you mean in Printer Setup - The only printer that shows up is C80, how do I select acrobat?

[bluedog]

Set up a printer in the OS, go to System Prefs and set up a printer.

If you need to you set up a 'dummy printer'

When "Adding" a printer
1. Choose IP Printing, and select Printer Type "LPD/LPR"
2. For a printer address choose a bogus address 10.0.0.253
3. Queue name "Test" or whatever
4. Printer Model: This is where you choose a Postscript driver

Now you'll have the option of choosing that printer in an OSX-native app.

I'm wondering in your install if you opt'ed to not include printer drivers. You should have had some PPD files describing laser printer PPD files from your OS in Quark.

Look in these two places and see if you have some PPD files:
/Library/Printers/
/Users/(yourusername)/Library/Printers/

And see what you have for printer drivers/PPDs