After having a thoroughly miserable experience recently that took 2 full days of my time, I'm wondering if anybody out there who's doing true VDP work can suggest a starting place for picking up some useful Excel knowledge? I'm not even sure what I need until I come across a job that requires some Excel tricks I don't have.

Case in point: This job required taking a client database of 15,000 numbers which represented credit-card type information. 16 digits in groups of 4 they had generated. Then they were to be represented as Code 128 barcodes on the reverse of the layout, like Gift Cards. We purchased a font set & instructions from an automation company recommended by our press vendor, but working with the data required the use of macros & formulas in Excel and I had to learn on the fly.

Maybe Excel for Dummies is the place to start, I dunno.

This a NON-working unit, although it might serve somebody for parts. Maybe you need extra drums or lamps, or something really heavy to hold open a door? Pics here if interested.

No firm asking price, make an offer and it's likely yours for the taking!

Located in Annapolis, Maryland so a local pick-up is probably ideal. Reply here or PM me and I'll put you in touch with My People.

- 100-8,000 lines per inch

-  SCSI Interface

-  RGB: 24 or 48 bit/ CMYK: 32 bit/Grayscale: 8 bit

-  Transparency or Reflection

-  Auto or Manual focus

-  All manuals

-  4 extra Tungsten Halogen Lamps

-  352 lbs.

-  2 Drums

-  Drum Mounting Device

Not sure if anybody else has used this plug-in, or received jobs from clients who have but we got a large job in this morning was that was severely hosed.

To sum up: We use a Prinergy workflow, ID files are output direct to PDF with a Prinergy Optimized Preset.

In this instance, that PDF had several images that were low-res even though the original images were fine, some images that were CMYK had been converted to RGB, and yet other images that were rendered low-res had also been "segmented" like you'd see from a Publisher or Word PDF some times. We tried writing Postscript & Distilling also, same results.

Reading up at the Markzware Forum, this appears to be a common issue, although the Admin there wants to pin it all on the Print Providers being used. Shocking.  :rolleyes:

We discovered that re-naming those problem images & then er-linking solves the issue, as does the suggestion of a poster at the Forum which involves re-saving the images with a change, but not a real change. For instance, placing a guide into the image then resaving it did the trick.

Just a heads up, I'm curious if anybody else has run into this.

Just seeing if anybody is running Storefront off of their Prinergy setup. They bought it when we moved from Brisque, with plans to sell all kinds of web-based jobs and it's starting to take off pretty well. Thing is, I don't really have any support, aside from calling Kodak when I get stumped. Sure would be nice to have a group of people to talk with once in a while. GUA Forums are a joke, I check in every once in a while but it's pretty barren.

I didn't use to bother submitting these when Quark crashed (Version 7 I'm talking here) but today, I decided it was my duty to assist those wonderful Quark folks toiling away, trying to make a better application for you & I. Here's the header info on the .txt file it so nicely creates so you can email them the description:

Quote[BundleIdentifier]
com.quark.QuarkXPress

[BundleVersion]
QuarkXPress version 7.3.0(4275)

[BugDescription]
Wow, there I was performing an ill-advised action, like *zooming* out of a page when BAM!! Quark crashed!! I guess I'll stop doing a foolish thing like trying to actually SEE the jobs I'm working on!

I've decided it's the most direct route to abuse them. Feel free to post your own!

This started a few months ago, I've been using another Mac inn the same room to print all my proofs & forms but it's gotten to be incredibly irritating. Here's the setup:

HP2600N sits on the Network, we connect via Bonjour from the Mac workstations. It has an IP, but I just let the computer discover it on the Network and set ii up from there. That's the way the other 2 machines in the same room work also.

I've tried deleting the Printer from my list, and re-creating it but no luck there. Am I missing something incredibly obvious?

Oh, 10.4.9 here - I suppose I could update to 10.4.11 but I never had an issue in the past and haven't done any system updates since this started happening.

/shakes fist

Some bonehead in the office sent a file to the HP 4M Plus and it's running garbage pages. The printer isn't administered through a server, so there's no queue I can remove the fie from, it must be stuck in the printer's resident memory. Anybody know how to clear the damned thing, or do I just have to let it print until the file runs out?

Forgot to run the Maintenance Routines for a while (like a month, maybe longer) and now it's taking forever to get done. It's hung up "Restarting Stalk" for like 40 minutes now. I got work to do damn you Brisque!! Grrrrr.

/rant over

For now.

I'll lead this off with a disclaimer: The HD in question is a co-worker's and I can't quite fathom what he did to it prior to asking me to help. his only description was that he "locked it in the Apple Menu before leaving for vacation so the girlfriend's kid wouldn't mess with it." Okay.

It's a Western Digital Model WDC WD800BB-00FJA0 and is connected via USB, directly to the Mac without a hub. Per the Topic Title, it just won't mount. Disk utility info says it's already partitioned, Mac OS Extended Apple_HFS but no folder or file info. I can even Verify it and everything passes. I tired doing a diskutil mount /Volumes/<drivename> in Terminal and it appears to mount but doesn't actually show up in the Finder.

Kind of at a loss here. He had data on the thing, so I hesitate to format but unless there are any ideas that might be where it's headed. I've got a copy of DiskWarrior at home too (older version) so I think I'll bring that in tomorrow and see if it helps.

Any bright ideas out there?

Since we're moving to a big, bad PDF workflow ( in theory) with the new Prinergy install, I'm looking at effective, efficient ways to handle client PDF files that may be "less than satisfactory" if ya get my drift.

Been using PitStop for a number of years, and great as it is, doesn't always play nice and it's a little "kludgy". So I'm wondering what everybody else is using for heavy-duty PDF editing & correcting. I'll likely DL the trial of New this week & see how it handles, but would we be better served looking at PitStop Server?