[LightWaver-67]

Please don't tell me to stop whining or to "get over it"... if you're thinking of that... then just stop reading right here.

Now, let me preface this by saying that I have been using OSX at my home studio since the Public Beta. I think it was around 10.1 when I did-away with OS9 & Classic and went 100% OSX. I do design, video, DVD, audio and a whole host of other things on this box.

I was a huge influence in trying to convince my boss to try to "Beta Test" OS X in their production environment at my new job.

Keep in mind, all my GREAT experience with OS X has been at home... no networking... no print-servers... just me and my local devices.

----

Well... I convinced them to pony-up the dough for an additional internal 40Gb HD for the test G4, a copy of Panther, a copy of QuarkXPress, and a copy of FontAgent Pro.

I installed Panther on the second drive. It went in fine. I did all the susequent updates. No prob. I installed FAP & QXP. fine.

Two-days into this... I am ready to erase the drive and stay OS9 there. By the way... it's not all Apple's fault I'm pissed... some of it is Adobe.

- I cannot connect to ANY of our five (5) Canon CLC Printers or to their servers (ColorPass)
- It appears that they need Adobe Postscript installed which - OH, BY THE WAY- will NEVER be released for OS X
- Networking is flaky and a pain in the ass...
- The HP 5M does not show-up
- I have absolutely NO CLUE how to get OS X to see our PantherPlus RIP station... nor does PrePress... the company that MAKES THE IMAGESETTER...!!!
- QUARK! In their infinite wisdom...QXP v6 will only down-save to v5... NOT v4, which the OTHER Macs are using
- QUARK! They tell me on the phone: "Now that you've updated THAT serial number to v6, you NO LONGER GET SUPPORT for earlier versions on that machine...!!!!! So if I go back to OS9 or run QXP v4 in classic, I get no support for issues I have.

I mean, I'm only 2-3 days into this, and I don't want to even BOOT into OSX at work. I can't do ANYTHING on that machine and NO ONE will give me answers. CANON: "Call your rep"... IKON: "Call your local rep"... LOCAL IKON REP: "Talk to your service guy"... Talked to the service guy (who is there every-day working on our 5 Canons we use for production) and he says: "I dunno... I just fix 'em... call the office".

"I did, they told me to ask you..."

- shrugs shoulders -

I called PrePress about our PantherPlus (coincidence) Imagesetter asking how to output from OSX... his response: "Download the PPDs from our website"... PPDs...? How the "F" is that gonna make their Imagesetter show-up in my print dialog box... I NEED DRIVERS!!!!

I swear... it's like NO ONE wants to help me get this OS into production.

What the hell are companies supposed to do...? Stay with OS9 until it blows-up...? Why the hell won't these companies get on the ball and provide SOLUTIONS for us adopting the NEXT GENERATION operating system that DRIVES the goddang print & design industry...???

It's as if they're just sitting back thinking: "Ah... don't worry... this 'OS X' thing will blow-over soon and they'll all be back to using 9.2 again..."

? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

Sorry... I just had to get that out there... I mean, I'm no system administrator... but I'm no ludite, either... yet for the LIFE of me... with 2-days of searching the web and making phone calls... I can't even print a stupid file to ANYTHING.

Grrrr....

For those who stuck with this and read the whole thing... my apologies... there's no payoff... just my rant. And I know it's not just Apple's fault... it's all parties involved. It's just frustrating.

thnx.

EDIT: Tried to change subject title

[Dex13]

Before hand why didn't you see that all the peripherals in your office and software were going to play nice w/ panther?

[LightWaver-67]

Originally posted by Dex13:
Before hand why didn't you see that all the peripherals in your office and software were going to play nice w/ panther?

"Why didn't you take a different road..?. then you would have avoided the accident..."

How could I know what problems I'd have before-hand...?

I figured it was a small investment (Under $400) to beta test OS X... How could I have foreseen that I'd find NO WAY of connecting to the printers...? HOW?

Apple has no info on this... Canon has no info on it's site about OSX... IKON has no info about OSX... PrePress has no info on OSX... where would I have found this info...?

Besides... I find it EXTREMELY perplexing that a company or design department get pidgeon-holed into staying with an ever-increasingly-antiquated operating system ONLY because the 3rd-party vendors do not stay on-top of things... oh, wait... there were drivers for EVERYTHING on Canon's site from Win 95, Win 98, Win NT, Win 2000, Win Me, Win XP... Wait... Win XP...? Isn't THAT just as new as OS X...?

Yep!

I knew there would be an "adjustment' curve... but I had NO IDEA that I would run-into things that would stop us dead in our tracks at a fundamental level.

[ratlater]

I can't speak to the print driver problems, or the quark problems, but OS X network shouldn't be flaky. OS X networking has always been rock solid for me and networking is my job. What kind of problems where you having?

-matt

[Dex13]

So no drivers on the website at all?

hmm... maybe that should have been a hint not to upgrade.

If it was only a $400 investment, to beta test Panther, then you must have expected to hit some "bumps" in your crossover.

[Diggory Laycock]

I don't know much about printers either - what model is your CLC?

this page suggests that there is a PostScript driver for the CLC3200.

http://software.canon-europe.com/Pro...CLC3200631.asp

[::maroma::]

I feel your pain, in some ways. I work for a very large company, in the very large design department. We finally moved to OS X about 4 months ago. We are currently on 10.2.3. Our IT department takes FOREVER to adopt new versions of anything (OS or apps). Example: we were using Photoshop 5 until we moved to OS X (4 months ago), and now we're on 7. God only knows when they'll upgrade us to CS (8).

Luckily though, our network works great, and we can print to all of our laser printers and plotters with virtually no problems. The only problems we are experiencing is with OS X apps that have bugs with printing. Our laser printers are indeed Canon, and we do use the CLC print servers. I'm not sure about Panther, but Jag has drivers and all that available. I think you just need to talk to the right person (whoever the hell that is).

We don't have RIPs or anything like that, so that's not an issue for us.

We also have a few black and white HP printers that work like a charm as well.

Quark... well, what can I tell ya... it's Quark. We moved to InDesign about 6 months ago and our lives have been so much better since then. I look at all of the problems people are having with Quark 6, and I just have to thank my stars that I don't have to deal with Quark anymore. If I could suggest one thing, I would say move your workflow to InDesign if at all possible. Quark as a company is absolutely horrible. They do not deserve any business.

So, I guess all I can say is stick with it man. Don't give up on OS X in the workplace yet. If you can, do all of your serious work in OS 9, and then in your free time (if you have any) try to get all your OS X issues worked out one by one. The solutions are out there, it's just a matter of sifting through all of the ignorant people out there who don't take their jobs seriously (like IKON) and finding people who know their stuff.

IKON has helped us quite a bit though. But I think that's only because we are pretty much the ones that are keeping them in business in our area. Most of the time, when our company says jump, our vendors say "How high sir, HOW HIGH??"

Good luck. I hope you find solutions to your problems, because OS X is a dream to work in if you have all the right tools (drivers, etc).

[LightWaver-67]

Originally posted by Dex13:
So no drivers on the website at all?

hmm... maybe that should have been a hint not to upgrade.

If it was only a $400 investment, to beta test Panther, then you must have expected to hit some "bumps" in your crossover.

What's with the attitude...? Regardless of how much "homework" I could have done, the same results would cause the same frustration... the inability to move-forward to the next OS with the current hardware/workflow.

First of all... what does the cost of the test have to do with anything...? it was the cost of a copy of OSX, the drive and FontAgent Pro... everything I needed to test printing.

I already STATED that I expected "bumps" as you call them. I don't call the lack of ability to connect to ANY of our CLC printers (we have two CLC1120's, two CLC1150's and a CLC1000... all of them controlled by a Canon RIP server) a minor bump... that's a mountain when output is your primary goal.

I really DO hope I finally get the right people on the phone to get this happening... It can't be IMPOSSIBLE, can it...?

* sigh *

[cpac]

and so we see the reason production houses and the like don't upgrade very quickly.


Seriously - Apparently Jaguar works for some people doing much of what you're doing.

Panther's only been out for a six weeks or so - complete with new networking and printing things going on, so its not surprising there aren't new drivers and whatnot available yet.

I sympathize with your frustration, but realize that when you're on the cutting edge (or even within a year or two of it), things may not work the way you expect them to.

[Axo1ot1]

Originally posted by LightWaver-67:
I installed FAP

you said fap lol

[Terri]

Sounds like you need to turn on AppleTalk. Turn it on both in Networking and in Directory Access.

You do not need to install drivers. You just need the PPDs. The same ones you used under System 9 will work just fine. Make a folder in your home folder and name it PPDs or something and put all the PPDs in there. In Printer Setup Utility make up your printers and choose other when it asks for the correct PPD. In Quark tell it to use the PPD folder in your home folder.

I have lots of prepress and design shops set up this way, no problems at all.

It is annoying that network drives don't show up on the desktop, but you can make aliases to them and put them on your desktop.

[wadesworld]

Sounds like you need to turn on AppleTalk. Turn it on both in Networking and in Directory Access.

I agree. If that HP 5M was showing up on the network in OS 9, it definitely should show up in Panther - IF you turn on AppleTalk.

- I cannot connect to ANY of our five (5) Canon CLC Printers or to their servers (ColorPass)

How do you connect to them in OS 9? With AppleTalk? If so, you need AppleTalk turned on in Panther.

- It appears that they need Adobe Postscript installed which - OH, BY THE WAY- will NEVER be released for OS X

Um, please explain exactly what you mean by this? Adobe Postscript is not a program you install on OS X (or OS 9 for that matter).

I called PrePress about our PantherPlus (coincidence) Imagesetter asking how to output from OSX... his response: "Download the PPDs from our website"... PPDs...? How the "F" is that gonna make their Imagesetter show-up in my print dialog box... I NEED DRIVERS!!!!

Here again, I'll bet it uses AppleTalk under OS 9, so it needs AppleTalk enabled under OS X.

Wade

[theolein]

I'll echo Terri and Wadesworld on this one while agreeing that a lot of the comments in this thread have been less than helpful (WTF is wrong with you people anyway? The guy needs help, not wisearse comments that only make him and everyone else that isn't a friggin teenager upset!)

In my last job, we had two Xerox DC2240s (They have internal RIPs) and I managed to print to them flawlessly from Jaguar via IPP (Internet Printing Protocol). But Xerox is a different kettle of fish to Canon, and they have much better support and very good recent drivers. However, they also, just like Canon, only support Postscript printing from Macs. I don't know what model of RIP, your CLCs are using, but I did find a Posctscript driver for OSX 10.2 for the ColorPass Z40/PSNX-40_655 onwards. I also found an OSX version of the NetSpotConsole for configuring the RIP.

Here are the URLs(Z40 only):
Postscript Driver: http://software.canon-europe.com/sof...%20/%20PSNX-40
NetSpot Console:http://software.canon-europe.com/sof...%20/%20PSNX-40

The page from where I got these was:
http://software.canon-europe.com/ and look in the section: Professional Print & Copy Solutions

You might be able to find drivers for your model of RIP there as well.

I also agree with Terri that you should be able to use the PPDs for QX4 for QX6 as well.

If all this fails you could try Windows printer sharing. This means making one of your Windows machines that is able to connect to the RIP share its printer and that you print through that device instead of directly.

For the network problems, I also agree that turning on AppleTalk will make OSX be able to see the network volumes that OS9 users can. If your company is using Active Directory for Windows, you will need your admin to add you to the directory before you can access it.

[voodoo]

Listen to terri. He knows what he's talking about.

Also as someone mentioned it is very important to realize that PostScript ISN'T a driver or a program or anything like that. It is just a language that most laserprinters speak. OS X speaks PostScript natively and to work with a printer it only need its PPD. PPD's don't change between OS's and platforms. PostScript printers should not be a problem in OS X if they were fine in OS 9. Inkjets are another matter..

networking in Panther has been a tad flakier than in Jagwire but only regarding SMB and VPN AFAIK. The rest is just as good as Jag. In fact when you get the hang of it networking in 10.3 is very powerful and flexible. I don't know much about your situation but turning on AppleTalk (in SysPrefs>Network>AppleTalk)

While a daft decision by Quark it was no secret that QXP6 could only save down to QXP5. for obvious marketing reasons if you ask me. Somebody should write a utility to convert QXP6 docs down to QXP5. I suppose it could be done manually if you had XPress 5. Well.. Quark is Quark. We don't use their products because we like the company so much.

I understand your frustration there but I think there is a solution to most your technical problems.

[JLL]

Originally posted by LightWaver-67:
I called PrePress about our PantherPlus (coincidence) Imagesetter asking how to output from OSX... his response: "Download the PPDs from our website"... PPDs...? How the "F" is that gonna make their Imagesetter show-up in my print dialog box... I NEED DRIVERS!!!!

Uhm, no! PPDs are all you need.

As mentioned earlier you probably need to enable AppleTalk OR you coould use TCP/IP.

Choose TCP/IP when setting up the printer, type the IP number of the printer and choose the PPD.

edited for clarification

[LightWaver-67]

For those wh have given helpful information... THANK YOU.

Most of my frustration lies in MY OWN inability to figure this stuff out.

AppleTalk IS on in Panther... that's why I'm so confused. What I REALLY need there is a SysAdmin type of person who is Mac OSX savvy, but they are a SMALL company and even with my extremely limited knowledge of OSX... I am the most qualified there (that's scary).

The things that scared/worried me the most were the topics online I found where people used "Gimp Print" or "CUPS" to make printing work and they talked about a whole mess of going-in and physically modifying the PPDs for specific uses because OSX couldn't contrlo installable options & such... it just got me even MORE confused and MORE irritated.

I'll give it a few weeks and hopefully I'll get all the devices visible and able to be output to. Thanks so much.

HEY! Anyone in the Salem, NH area here that knows how to do this stuff...?

heheheh...

[Terri]

Originally posted by voodoo:
Listen to terri. He knows what he's talking about.

PS: Terri is female.

As far as Quark saving to an earlier version they have pretty much always only saved down one version.

Adobe has gotten even worse with their new CS suite. Both Illustrator and InDesign do not save down at all.

Ironically when my accounts have upgraded to Mac OS X and I suggested that they move to InDesign their response has been that non of their printers will take InDesign files only for them to later learn that they also do not take Quark 6 files or Quark 5 files since all the printers are still on Quark 4.

Back to the subject of this thread we have had very few problems with Mac OS X other then having to relearn how everything works and the problem with older Postscript 1 desktop printers seem to choke on some of Mac OS X's print output.

[mitchell_pgh]

Enabling AppleTalk is a basic function here (large University in a small design setting). In fact, when I enabled it, around 30+ printers showed up! (our IT people didn't even know what AppleTalk was or how to shut it off and now that some of our newer printers are coming standard with Rendezvous they are also showing up [evil laugh])

I'm not going to be an Apple apologist (fighting the urge), but perhaps you could call Apple and play dumb AKA "I'm with a design firm, and we are considering switching to OS X, but we have XY and Z printers... are there drivers for those printers?" That may be a start.

There is VERY limited RIP support for OS X. It's coming, but it's like the print industry (VERY SLOW to adopt new technologies)

Regarding Quark and InDesign, I'm on the fence. If Quark comes out with a 6.1 that is anything like 4.1 with regards to stability, I'm going to stick with it. Unfortunately, InDesign is starting to look less like a "nice idea" and more like a workhorse. I've started using it for some projects, but have still found myself going back to Quark for some projects (I will be honest and admit that much of it is that I have 4+ years with Quark and know it backwards and forwards).

Don't put up with the run-around from your vendors (the Cannon person). Indicate that you would consider switching printers for OS X support (in a very nice way) and see if you can get your rep to track that information down. I did that once and received a phone call back in less then four hours. I don't like using this tactic, but it works when people could care less about helping.

Again, call Apple and search the net.

[Terri]

Originally posted by LightWaver-67:
AppleTalk IS on in Panther...

Did you open Directory Access and make sure that it is on their too?

What happens if you open a Terminal window and type "atlookup"?

[voodoo]

Originally posted by Terri:
PS: Terri is female.

My apoligies ma'am

Carry on.

[Griggsy]

Originally posted by Terri:
Did you open Directory Access and make sure that it is on their too?

What happens if you open a Terminal window and type "atlookup"?

yep that happened to me, panther installed great, then went to look for the network, didn't see jack, cue cold sweat as i'm supposed to be in charge of IT.

But i know someone cleverer than me at nimug who told me about the directory access, soon as i did that, i was able to network to norad and back.

[MickS]

Originally posted by JLL:
Uhm, no! PPDs are drivers.

It's always fun when someone makes a categoric statement that's completely wrong

PPD = Postscript Printer Description. It describes the capabilities of the particular Postscript printer so that the postscript printer driver can drive it to it's full capabilities. If you don't have the particular PPD for a Postscript printer you can use the Generic PPD and you'll get output.

[JKT]

The problem with your networking could actually be the OS 9 boxes. Do they all have TCP/IP networking activated? If not then, IIRC, no OS X machine will ever be able to see them, regardless of the AppleTalk status.

[LightWaver-67]

Originally posted by Terri:
Did you open Directory Access and make sure that it is on their too?

What happens if you open a Terminal window and type "atlookup"?

Hmmm... I'm leaving for work in just a few... I'll look again in the Directory Access when I get there.

Again, thank you all for your help (for those that DID help).

I'm gonna try to dig deep into the IKON Information area today... I like the idea of sprinkling-in a little "fear" about looking into getting printers that WILL work with OS X to make them help me get THEIRS up & running. We pay a few salaries there with the amount of service work we do. We have a DEDICATED Rep who is in EVERY DAY for at least 2-3 hours servicing EACH machine.

I'm sure they'd hate to see THAT service contract disapear. I'll try to be more patient too.

[voodoo]

Originally posted by MickS:
It's always fun when someone makes a categoric statement that's completely wrong

PPD = Postscript Printer Description. It describes the capabilities of the particular Postscript printer so that the postscript printer driver can drive it to it's full capabilities. If you don't have the particular PPD for a Postscript printer you can use the Generic PPD and you'll get output.

You are correct sir!

PPD = Postscript Printer Description.

Rest assured though that JLL will post here soon trying to convince us that they really are drivers

[LightWaver-67]

Originally posted by voodoo:
You are correct sir!

PPD = Postscript Printer Description.

Rest assured though that JLL will post here soon trying to convince us that they really are drivers

I KNEW I wasn't wrong about that one...!

Oh, and the other thing I read about; the ColorPass V80 servers using Adobe PostScript Printer driver(s) to work under OS9... I don't know it to be TRUE... but I don't know ANY of this to be true... I'm learning as I go.

Off to work for me... Thank goodness for MacNN Forums while I'm at work.

ttfn

[JLL]

Originally posted by MickS:
It's always fun when someone makes a categoric statement that's completely wrong

PPD = Postscript Printer Description. It describes the capabilities of the particular Postscript printer so that the postscript printer driver can drive it to it's full capabilities. If you don't have the particular PPD for a Postscript printer you can use the Generic PPD and you'll get output.

I know, but to the regular user, the PPD file is like the driver since that's all that's neede - the PostScript driver is included in the system.

LightWaver said he needed drivers - I just said he didn't, the PPDs are enough to get it working.

[JLL]

Originally posted by LightWaver-67:
I KNEW I wasn't wrong about that one...!

Oh, and the other thing I read about; the ColorPass V80 servers using Adobe PostScript Printer driver(s) to work under OS9... I don't know it to be TRUE... but I don't know ANY of this to be true... I'm learning as I go.

Off to work for me... Thank goodness for MacNN Forums while I'm at work.

ttfn

You still don't need anything but the PPDs.

Your HP 5M is also using a PPD - it's just included with the system.

[exca1ibur]

Originally posted by Terri:

Adobe has gotten even worse with their new CS suite. Both Illustrator and InDesign do not save down at all.

Illustrator CS lets you save down. Its under Export now, for some wierd reason. Its labelled Illustrator Legacy now. You can save as Illustrator 10,9,8,3 and Japanese 3. I found this out after sending out a file that no one could open up and had to do a crash course search. LOL


In Photoshop CS under Preferences under file compatibility they have a drop box for PSD compatibility, thats about it. Nothing on which version its compatibile with so I cant be too sure on that one. But I do use it and haven't had any trouble with sending PSDs to people.

[voodoo]

Originally posted by JLL:
I know, but to the regular user, the PPD file is like the driver since that's all that's neede

Toldya

[Terri]

Originally posted by exca1ibur:
Illustrator CS lets you save down. Its under Export now, for some wierd reason. Its labelled Illustrator Legacy now. You can save as Illustrator 10,9,8,3 and Japanese 3. I found this out after sending out a file that no one could open up and had to do a crash course search. LOL

WOW, Thank You!

Completely missed that one. We had been keeping version 10 around just for this reason so now we can file it in the trash.

Already knew about the Photoshop one. In fact Adobe says to keep that turned on so that it will be compatible with future versions as well.

Still no solution for InDesign, most of the printers are still on System 8.

[Arkham_c]

I'm not in the printing industry, but I have a question. Are the printers (any of them) listed here:

http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net/p_..._Printers.php3

If so, I'm confident that you can print to them with some effort. PM me if they are and I'll try to assist. You mentioned some frustration with CUPs, but it's really quite extensive and can help you access a lot of printers that you would not be able to use otherwise (some without a native driver if the printer is postscript).

[Terri]

Originally posted by Arkham_c:
I'm not in the printing industry, but I have a question. Are the printers (any of them) listed here:

http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net/p_..._Printers.php3

If so, I'm confident that you can print to them with some effort. PM me if they are and I'll try to assist. You mentioned some frustration with CUPs, but it's really quite extensive and can help you access a lot of printers that you would not be able to use otherwise (some without a native driver if the printer is postscript).

I tried using Gimp-Print to print to an Epson 3000 hoping that we could do away with the Classic RIP that we were using, but ran into two problems.

1) Qaurk thinks that it is printing to a non postscript printer so that all its options were disabled.

2) EPS printed out at low resolution just like we were using the non postscript Epson driver. I tried installing ESP Ghostscript thinking that might help, but it didn't.

[wadesworld]

Additionally, check to see if your printers are supported by ESP Print Pro:

http://www.easysw.com/printpro/

They claim to have drivers for virtually every printer ever made.

But again, the first thing I'd trouble shoot is why that HP 5M isn't showing up. It should work fine with Panther.

Wade

[mikerally]

LightWaver-67 wrote:

Most of my frustration lies in MY OWN inability to figure this stuff out.

I think you pretty much nailed it on the head there.

I understand your frustration too, the Macintosh in this respect no longer is the easy to use tool it is reknowned [sp?] to be.

However for future reference, you should have really asked for help and not lodged this as a complaint (as you did in the thread title).

This is a forum where we all come to help each other, and I feel the manner in which you started this thread has encouraged some people to post some very negative replies.

Remember we are all here to help each other, so there is no need to take an aggressive tone.

Moving on to cover your problems, a lot of people have covered a lot of what I was prepared to say (I have joined this thread late on).

Your computer hasn't been able to see the printers because Appletalk was not turned on. To give your Mac a chance of communicating with any legacy devices that are on your network as they did with Mac OS 9 and earlier, you should enable Appletalk in both System Preferences and Directory Access.

Adobe Postscript technology is already built into Mac OS X. All that is required to communicate with a Postscript Printer is the relevant PPD file (often the Generic PPD is good enough just to get things going).

As for CUPS, I tend to find that handy for common consumer Inkjet Printers, I use it to drive my Canon BJC7000. If your printer already worked through Postscript in Mac OS 9, I wouldn't understand why you would need to use CUPS.

I'm afraid I don't know too much about RIP software for Mac OS X. I did once run PowerRip 2000 in Mac OS 9 at one point. As far as I know, RIP servers communicate in Postscript with their clients anyway, so I don't see why not having the correct PPD file would be all that was required if all you wanted to do is send a job off the the RIP server.

I hope some of the information I've mentioned to you has been useful. I know I've repeated somethings that have already been mentioned in here, but I just wanted to clarify my perspective.

I do hope you have good luck getting everything working, and remember if you still do have any problems you can always come to us for help.

[LightWaver-67]

YEEEEEE-HAAAAWWWWWW....!!!!

That glorious sound of rejoicing is due to the fact that I'm on my way to getting this working. Thanks SO MUCH for all the help I've gotten.

Here's the deal... I activated AppleTalk from day-1... but I did not know about the Directory Access control panel thingy until this morning. So, I came-in... and enabled it.

Nothing...

CRAP!

So... I go-back to OS9 to get stuff done. Not just 30-minutes ago, I figured it's time for me to put more effort into this before I go-home.

I re-boot into Panther...

I go to the Printer Setup...

I hit AppleTalk...

WHOOOOSH!!!

A whole list of printers GALORE...!!!! Apparently, I needed to re-boot after enabling AppleTalk in the Directory Access area.

I've printed to the HP 5MP, I've RIP'ed images to our imagesetter using a "generic" driver... it sees all the CLC's but wants real PPDs for them (gotta hunt them down now)... but bottom line, you all were right.

It wasn't THAT difficult... I just lost my patience and vented too-soon. Again, thanks SO MUCH for ALL the help you've given me.

Back to work now... I wanna get ALL the printers setup.

C-ya...!!!!

[teszeract]

totally off-topic:

This thread is a glowing example of the spirit of mac community, and why it's great to be a mac user (except for the first few posts). While I don't have anything technical to add, I've also learned a bit.

Some good guys in here!!

[::maroma::]

Originally posted by teszeract:
totally off-topic:

This thread is a glowing example of the spirit of mac community, and why it's great to be a mac user (except for the first few posts). While I don't have anything technical to add, I've also learned a bit.

Some good guys in here!!

Agreed! I love it when I see threads like this one.

And glad to hear you got it all worked out LightWaver. I know that I just hate it when I tout the Mac and OS X so much, then I try to show them what I've been raving about, and for some reason it doesn't work. Gets me all hot and bothered.

[theolein]

Originally posted by LightWaver-67:
YEEEEEE-HAAAAWWWWWW....!!!!

... it sees all the CLC's but wants real PPDs for them (gotta hunt them down now)...

Good on you. Remember that you can use the same PPDs that you used in Mac OS9 for the CLCs.

[Terri]

This is a shareware utility that I have found very useful on occasions for dealing with printer issues.
http://www.fixamac.net/software/psr/


Useful enough that I paid the shareware fee.

[LightWaver-67]

Originally posted by theolein:
Good on you. Remember that you can use the same PPDs that you used in Mac OS9 for the CLCs.

Really...?

I downloaded the PPDs for our imagesetter from the website... unstuffed the directory and inside were all the Mac OS9 PPDs for the different versions of their software.

Great!

I looked in the System > Library > Printers > PPDs > etc... and all the drivers/PPDs are .gz files... they're all compressed archives. When I put my PPD for the imagesetter in there... rebooted... relaunched the printer setup, etc... it does not "see" the older OS9 PPD I placed in there.

Quark6 doesn't see it either when I drop it in the QXP PPDs folder.

I guess I still have some homework to do.

[Terri]

This is what I do, works really well.

1) Make a folder in your home folder and call it PPDs.

2) Put all your personal PPDs in there, like the ones that you pulled to of your old System 9 folder.

3) When making a printer in Print Setup Utility and it asks for the PPD choose other and then navigate to the PPD folder that you made in your home folder.

4) In Quark go to Utilities --> PPD manager and check the checkbox next to "Use Auxiliary Folder"and then choose the PPD folder that you made in your home folder.

5) This has the added benefit of making the PPD list in Quark nice and short without sitting there and checking a ton of checkboxes in Quark.



If you really must install the PPDs into the root library folder then use this http://www.fixamac.net/software/psr/



BTW, I mentioned this in the first post that I made to this thread.



PS: Because Quark suffers from the same problem that it did back in the Classic days it is often better to setup the printer using a generic PPD and then choose the correct one in Quark's print dialog. Found this also solved a problem with making postscript files for distiller.

[ShotgunEd]

three words:

hurrah for terri.

I remember lots of helpful posts over the past couple of years, she really knows what she's talking about when it comes to printing.

[megus]

Originally posted by terri:
Adobe has gotten even worse with their new CS suite. Both Illustrator and InDesign do not save down at all.

Actually, InDesign CS has the option to export to the idx-format (InDesign Exchange Format) that can be opened by ID2.

Also, I think you'll find that Illustrator CS has an option to export to Illustrator Legacy as an option in the export-menu. You can even downgrade to Illustrator 3!

//megus

[LightWaver-67]

Okay... here I am at work again.

I tried the idea of placing the "Older" OS9 PPDs in their own directory and pointing to them from either/both Print Setup and/or Quark. They do not recognize them as PPDs though. They do not show-up in Quark's PPD Manager and when I navigate to them trying to setup a printer in the Printer Setup, I CAN select the PPD, but it defaults back to some sort of "Virtual Printer" setting and I still do not get the DOZENS of printer options I (we) need to run the CLCs.

Is it possible that the PPDs are too old or something...?

Also... I noticed that all the other PPDs in OS X are .gz (GZIP?) files... do I need to "Zip" my PPDs or something of that nature...?

Thanks in advance for your help.

[ngrundy]

Don't want to derail the thread but as a computer networks guy I know RIP as Routing Information Protocol. A fairly old, simplistic and limited interior routing protocol for small networks. What is RIP in the printing world and what does it do?

[LightWaver-67]

RIP = Raster Image Processing

[ngrundy]

Originally posted by LightWaver-67:
RIP = Raster Image Processing

Cool thanks. Makes more sence now

[barbarian]

Here's another printing question for the gururs here:

We have a laserwriter on an ethernet network.

Right we can connect/print via Appletalk/ethernet, but I would like to turn appletalk off and use ip printing which it theoretically supports...

The status page gives me an ethernet address, a blank zone name and a blank ip address (0.0.0.0)

Any ideas on how to do this?

[Terri]

Originally posted by LightWaver-67:


Is it possible that the PPDs are too old or something...?

I've yet to find a PPD that didn't work. Are you sure that you are grabbing PPDs and not something else? If you open them in TextEdit do they look like PPDs?

Try using this untility
http://www.fixamac.net/software/psr/
It will put them in the root library folder in the correct sub folder in .gz format.