#EPSF and XPress
2 messages in this thread
Here is a question from a user that was left as an easyplex message. I prefer
to answer questions on the Adobe forum so that many users can read the
response and also add their experience and information as well. ek
I am running V1.1 Xpress with 5 small EPSF Illustrator files the largest of
which is 17K. Printout over appletalk to a QMS PS 810 is 45 minutes for a two
page brochure. Appletalk has a transmission rate of 240+K bits per second or
>30K. Why in the world should it take so long. It is no wonder that service
bureaus are not accepting Xpress happily but maybe it is something I'm doing
wrong.
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