B4Print.com

I started working with Preps and Rampage about a year ago and this problem has been a pain up until today. Whenever we added a Spot Color bar, the Preps 8.0 $color (plate color mark) would print the PMS and rsi_alias_color# on top of each other. This made reading it by the pressman impossible. The guy who trained me and has worked with both programs for years didn't know how to fix it and googling the problem led to it as being a bug from Rampage. So I left it at that until it dawned on me to play around with the print options in Preps. After some trial and error, I finally have it fixed. I'd have to to it manually every time we print PMS jobs, but it's still a fix. Hopefully this can help those who are still using Rampage and Preps like I am.

On the print dialog box under Imaging Options>Color Handling, switch it from none to PDF Color mapping.
(https://i.imgur.com/mdMemdU.jpg)

Go to Color Separations
(https://i.imgur.com/dC9w7xz.jpg)

Switch rsi_color_alias# to Pantone color. Match the order on the list. Click print and save PDF to your work folder.
(https://i.imgur.com/mUp5Kjf.jpg)

The before and after in Rampage monitor preview.
(https://i.imgur.com/9KZBEr1.jpg)

...or you could do what I did when I was on Preps and Rampage - make a repeating pattern color bar in Illustrator, but name the swatches with the rsi_coloralias_1, etc. as dictated in the Preps manual and save as a pdf to the Preps duplicating mark folder and then place. You will need one each for 1-color jobs, 2-color jobs, 3-color jobs and ... well, you get the idea. When placed in Preps, Preps will automatically map rsi_coloralias_1 to the first alphabetical spot color, and so on. Export your imposition from Preps as a pdf. Preps will not have an issue mapping the colors, and as long as you use the $color designation string on the correct Preps mark, it will read on your plate exactly as the color is named in the original artwork file. I can't remember exactly which mark is the correct one for Preps, as I am about 3 years+ removed from using it, but it is NOT a smart mark oddly enough.
[edit] Just looked it up... for Rampage, I think it's called "Platenames_9x"

The problem we were having wasn't the color mapping, it was the double printing. We just moved to Preps 8 when I started and the guy before me was using Preps 5 and had no problem with it. I guess between the two versions something went wrong with Rampage and Preps. The color bars are setup exactly as you described. We are also using Rampage 13, not sure how long ago they moved to that.

It's been a while. Rampage was bought by Fuji about 3-4 years ago, and my understanding was that it was to be dissolved and incorporated into XMF