I have recently updated to Quark 8. I use 10.6.3 with an 3.06 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo iMac. I've come across having postscript errors when printing from Quark to either an HP Laserjet 5000n or an Okidata C9300 color printer. After doing some research I believe the cause of my problems are using Photoshoop eps files on my layouts. I believe some of my eps files have been encoded as binary and should be ASCII instead. Is there a tool or utility I can use in Quark or even Acrobat Pro to determine what eps files in my layout were saved as binary or ASCII formats?
If you are printing to a Windows spooler queue or a PostScrip emulator then I'd say ASCII. Otherwise binary should be fine.
I think you misunderstood my question. I cannot print because of postscript error caused by the binary eps files. I am trying to find out if there is a utility I can use in either Quark or Acrobat Pro (for the Mac) that will indicate which eps images in my layout were formatted as either binary or ASCII. I would like to change my images to ASCII but I have too many in my library. It's time consuming to open each one up and reformatting.
None that I can think of. What about setting up a PhotoShop batch function to re-save the EPS's as ASCII85 EPS's?
Thanks. How do I set up this Photoshop batch function? I use CS4 v.11 Photoshop.
Is there any good reason to keep them as EPS? Unless it is a duotone or has Spot Channels, it might be worthwhile to convert to TIFF. Of course that means you will have to relink them in Quark which could be a pain.
You can use the Image Processor in Bridge to do a batch conversion to TIFF format.
Another option - make a PDF and then print from Acrobat to your printer.
The files have always been in eps even before I started here (12 years now). I think it's because we use clipping paths. I thought and heard that Quark deals better with eps files instead of tiffs. I currently do print to pdf but this is an extra step to take. Right now if I print directly from Quark to my Oki color printer, blank pages will print out with lines of jibberish on each page. Printing to my HP Laserjet 5000, the page spools all the way but nothing comes out. So far, people from Quark forums have suggested that my files be formatted to ASCII.
I've always had problems trying to print from Quark using anything other than Appletalk and there is no AppleTalk in 10.6.3.
Eps was the standard years ago but anymore, .eps files cause problems. I hear this from designers all the time, "I have been using .eps for years, etc, etc, etc..." Well stop it. :laugh:
just want to add that never had this problem in Quark 4, 5, or 6. It all went downhill in 8.
Agreed. Version 6 wasn't the greatest but 7 and 8 royally suck. Bag quark, get InDesign. I don't ever use .eps.... tiff for regular images or psd if I'm clipping something out or using transparency or layers. It's the only way to go, especially if you are sending to a printer with a JDF capable workflow.
I think we have successfully deterred all our client list to NOT use Quark. I haven't seen a Quark file in forever, and the last one I did see was 6.5
I just ran a job from a quark PDF the other day. The damn file was 800 megs for a little 32 page signature. What the french, toast!?!? It would have been 1/10 of that out of indy.
I did a 64 pg'er out of Quark 8 with live transparency. The PDF was over 1.5 gb. But it worked to my amazement.
Are you going to save those on a floppy? Or should I say *floppies* - you'll probably need more than one disk.
http://www.mattbeals.com/videos/Adobe/PhotoShopBatch/ (http://www.mattbeals.com/videos/Adobe/PhotoShopBatch/)
Matt, I have to say, you are one great big help to me here at B4. Thanks.
Thank you, I'm happy to help when I can.
Quote from: Stiv on June 16, 2010, 05:14:42 PMMatt, I have to say, you are one great big help to me here at B4. Thanks.
Second that motion, Madame Chair. Following the mouse pointer is great training for flight sim games though. :laugh:
Thanks. I may post these to YouTube or iTunes as pod casts.
Shit, this mean I hafta shave before I post here?
Quote from: hotmetal on June 16, 2010, 11:34:13 PMShit, this mean I hafta shave before I post here?
As long as you include the shower, shampoo, and shoe-shine. :police:
Quote from: quarkuser on June 16, 2010, 11:49:58 AMI've come across having postscript errors when printing from Quark to either an HP Laserjet 5000n or an Okidata C9300 color printer.
In your printer setup in Quark, in the options, select ASCII as the data format not binary.
This has been a known problem with Quark since v6.5 and probably still exist.
oh yeah... did I mention Quark sucks
Quote from: hotmetal on June 16, 2010, 11:34:13 PMShit, this mean I hafta shave before I post here?
I think we covered this in the moustache thread, mkay. :naughty:
Quote from: quarkuser on June 16, 2010, 11:49:58 AMI have recently updated to Quark 8. I use 10.6.3 with an 3.06 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo iMac. I've come across having postscript errors when printing from Quark to either an HP Laserjet 5000n or an Okidata C9300 color printer. After doing some research I believe the cause of my problems are using Photoshoop eps files on my layouts. I believe some of my eps files have been encoded as binary and should be ASCII instead. Is there a tool or utility I can use in Quark or even Acrobat Pro to determine what eps files in my layout were saved as binary or ASCII formats?
I would test converting these over before committing to batch processing these files. It really shouldn't matter ASCII or binary. A few questions... What version of Quark 8 are you rolling? What is the flatness on those clipping paths? Are you sure your Quark 8 is set up like previous versions when you print?
There are several reasons for PS errors... can you post the EXACT PS error? That will tell us a lot. I doubt it has anything to do with ASCII or binary.
If you're printing through a Windows spool queue you need to print ASCII. Printing to a PostScript emulator *can* be problematic when printing binary. ASCII is more verbose but generally always works. But like DCS said, we need the entire error message.
Don't you DARE try to upstage me Matt. :tongue:
Thank you for all the responses. I do have ASCII selected in options for the printer setup. I've even tried using Binary and Clean 8-Bit just in case it helped but didn't. Before a page processes for printing, I will receive a warning window saying, "Page could contain EPS pictures which include Binary data. Okay to continue?". The Photoshop images used in these pages have a clipping path flatness of 6 device pixels. Depending on what printer I use, I get two postscript errors. When I print directly to the OKI C9300 color printer, the page starts to spool. It stops spooling early from 8% to even 40%. After that, I get blank pages with lines of jibberish spewing out of the printer. I have to cancel the job from the printer and delete the print job also. The opposite happens when I go to print with the HP Laserjet 5000n black/white printer. The page spools all the way to 100% but nothing ever comes out of the printer. The printer will indicate that it is processing while the page spools and then switches to ready after 100% with no page coming out. I have the most up to date drivers. I have talked with 2 Oki Support technicians and have even reinstalled all the necessary drivers needed up to Snow Leopard. HP's website indicated that the most recent drivers came installed with the new iMacs and Snow Leopard upgrade dvds we purchase. Never had this problem up to Quark 6.5. The Quark I'm currently using is 8.1.6. Everyone else in my department has Quark 8.15 and all experience the same problems. I'm thinking this is a patch that Quark needs to do since in their support forum there were other postings of people experiencing the same printing problems with other brand name printers. As of now, the only successful way of printing is distilling the page to a pdf file. Works for me but I feel is an unnecessary step for the amount of money used to purchase Quark.
are these 8-bit or 16-bit photoshop images (EPS)?
are they composite or DCS?
have you tried other images with the same results? (problems)
The images used are 8 bit in CMYK. Not sure if composite or DCS. How do I find out? By the way, no problems in printing if just plain text is on the page.
Your flatness is set a little high for me on your paths, but if anything, that wouldn't be the problem.
If the files were DCS, you would have a composite preview and 4 support files with the high rez data for each sep. Probably not that either.
Do you have transfer function or halftone screen clicked on? How about extra channels or JPEG encoding turned on?
The easiest thing for you to do so we can diagnose the actual problem is to physically post the PS error as it reads when it errors out. Make a screen capture or copy and paste it... whatever. If you can do that, I can tell you where the problem is originating.
you can have a single file DCS file (DCS 2.0)
anyhow,
Test.
Open a image in photoshop, check to make sure they are 8-bit (Image-->Mode)
it resave it at EPS only,
make a new quark page and print that.
also, try the same, but save it as a TIFF.
just trying to nail down the problem spot here....
When you print from Quark to the HP 5000 check the box in the print dialog box for "Postscript Error Handler". When it errors it should kick out a page with the actual postscript error on it.
As I mentioned earlier. Quark has always given me problems when printing to my HP LaserJets that were not set up as AppleTalk printers. It would do the exact same thing you are experiencing. Unfortunately there is no AppleTalk on Snow Leopard so as a test, if you have a Mac running Leopard or Tiger, print the Quark job from there to the HP 5000 set up as an AppletTalk printer and I'm betting it will print fine to it.
When i said jibberish I meant jibberish. No sentences or phrases are on these blank pages. The last printout I received had at the top of the page 7 rows of black diamonds, hearts, spades, clubs. Next row were the black squares along with a superscript 2. Next rows had a bunch of 2s, Ns and the square root sign. I've even had printouts of lines of random characters going vertically instead of horizontally. And these blank pages won't stop printing unless i cancel the jobs.
Our image library is so big. We use images from other vendors also for our ads (sports retail). I have run into some files were the transfer function and halftone screen were clicked on. I know we also have other files where none of the boxes are clicked on.
When these pages print out or don't print out, I do not get any messages on screen saying what type of error it is. The OKI has displayed postscript error on its display window.
Again...
When you print from Quark to the HP 5000 check the box in the print dialog box for "Postscript Error Handler". When it errors it should kick out a page with the actual postscript error on it.
Sorry, didn't see your reply. Was typing same time when yours showed up. Clicked on postscript error handler. Printed a page with error message saying: PostScript Level 3 output to a PostScript Level 2 device. The PostScript level chosen in the advanced tab is greater than the PostScript level of its printer. Printed the page again, adjusting it Level 2. The page came out! I will experiment for now with other files and hopefully will work on HP printer. I've had experience with random successes with some files and not others. Thanks for input!
Oh yeah, the 5000 is a PS Level 2 device. :laugh: Glad you got it that far.
Yeah, that will definitely do it. Check your Quark 5 and 6 settings, I bet they're the same way. You are trying to send superior PS data to a backward printer.
Tried the same trick on the Oki. No luck. At least one printer solved for now.
Probably a PS level 1. :tongue:
Does the job print when using ASCII EPS files?
I'm not sure how Quark 8 handles this, but TIFF's can have clipping paths. But if you're going to go to all the trouble of making TIFF's of the EPS's and relinking them then I would just make a PDF and print from Acrob at....
I have received an email from Quark customer service after I complained to them about this issue. They said that this is a discrepancy in their software and that their engineering team is working on it. Printing works fine on some brands such as Lexmark and Xerox. They told me the best way to print is to make a postscript file which is what I have been doing for the Oki.
Quark has a customer service dept???!! I thought they were all beancounters there nickel & diming us to death!
Quote from: andyfest on June 23, 2010, 10:54:43 AMQuark has a customer service dept???!! I thought they were all beancounters there nickel & diming us to death!
(http://entremeister.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c9cc253ef01053642442e970b-800wi)
hahahahahahahahaha!!!!!
I noticed that most of them are on their cell phones...
prolly playing a videogame
They probably don't get many calls these days. I'm sure Quark management will attribute that to it being a superior product instead of the fact no one uses it anymore. :laugh:
it's magical!
and has 50% more sparkles
LOL. I designate this as "thread o' the day".
gets my vote!
:woohoo:
I sent a message to the english-language contact email address 2 days ago to ask what the upgrade path was from 3 x QLA seats (7) to 3 x individual seats (8). Heard nothing as yet. :undecided:
Quote from: frailer on June 23, 2010, 10:00:25 PMI sent a message to the english-language contact email address
Well that's your prob right there. English isn't the official language in Pakistan.
Quote from: gnubler on June 24, 2010, 09:52:39 AMQuote from: frailer on June 23, 2010, 10:00:25 PMI sent a message to the english-language contact email address
Well that's your prob right there. English isn't the official language in Pakistan.
they probably had to call support for that