CompuServe Messages

Jim, I do not know what may be causing the long processing time for your XPress document to print to a QMS PS800 printer. Fourty-five minutes does seem like a long time for a two page newsletter, but… Let me ask you a few more questions – what system and finder are you using? I am assuming the files you are referring to where made in Illustrator. What type of images are they? I have seen files that are not large in size, but that contain too many end points. An example of this is a map that might contain a great number of squiggles. Each of these curved areas may have been created with far too many line segments. This will certainly slow the printer down. Are you combining all five images into one XPress file? Can you experiment with PageMaker or another pagelayout program? Do a quick mockup using the imported EPSF files and time it. I suspect you will find that there will be some significant differences. Each application has its own PostScript driver and some generate more efficient PostScript code than others. Another thing you might consider doing is scaling the images within Illustrator and then minimally adjusting it in the page layout software. Illustrator creates highly optimized PostScript code and the more work it can do for you the less the other application has to do; this should speed things up as well. Still another thing, are you using fonts? If so, how many and at what point size? The PostScript machine may be doing a lot of font caching which adds a some time. Do you have access to a printer with a hard disk for font storage? If you do try printing to it and check on the processing time. As you can see there are so many factors that affect output and influence the speed at which thing are processed. -Esther Kletter