1. FILM FROM LASER PRINTERS
2. PDF FILE SIZE PROBLEM WITH ACROBAT 4
3. FLATNESS IN EPS FILES
4. IN PRINT TO ON-LINE
5. XTENSIONS AND PLUGINS
6. UTILITIES/UPDATES
7. HINTS
8. SOURCES OF INFORMATION
9. LAST WORD
1. FILM FROM LASER PRINTERS
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Many quick printers are using laserprinters to produce positive film or even to print onto specially prepared plates for small offset printing. The problem with taking that a stage further has been that most newspapers, at least in the US, UK and Australia use negative film (positive film seems to be in more common use in Europe). It has been difficult to achieve a sufficient density of black when printing to transparent material with toner -- a problem which has not been entirely overcome with the higher temperature fusing rollers used on some laser printers. This has led to some use of translucent materials but again these have been more suited to positive use, and despite some claims, they do not suit operations where this material is expected to be stripped in with traditional film made by the traditional processes.
Now Xante has produced a separate unit for the processing of transparent material after it has been printed. Though this is a chemical process, the liquid is said to be of low toxicity -- so low that it can legally be disposed of via normal sewerage outlets.
The unit is advertised by Xante as for use with their Accel-a-Writer 3G laserprinter, which prints at up to 2400 dpi and is claimed to hold line screens up to 150 lpi in sizes up to 13" x 35.5" using Postscript 3.
We have been told that the film and processor could be used with the older 1200 dpi Accel-a-Writer 8300 series, which would imply that it could also be used with other makes of laserprinter.
This system opens interesting prospects for small newspaper use. We have seen exceptionally good newspaper use of full colour from paper separations prepared on a postscript laserprinter and then converted to film via a process camera. However, film is inherently more stable than paper for separations, and this would cut out one generation in the total process.
We have been given Australian dollar prices for the unit and supplies which gives a cost or the unit of around US$700 and a cost per tabloid sheet of film of a couple of dollars or less.
More details on the FilmStar2 processor is available at Xante's web site: http://www.xante.com. We would be very interested in hearing from anyone who has used this system, or seen it in use.
2. PDF FILE SIZE PROBLEM WITH ACROBAT 4
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There is a fairly severe file size problem with some PDFs created from Acrobat 4 -- as Adobe have now admitted in techdoc 323333. They state: "Acrobat Distiller 4.0 does not compress color and grayscale graphics correctly. In addition, Acrobat Distiller 4.0 does not distinguish between high and medium compression, or between low and minimum compression; it uses the same level of compression for high and medium, or for low and minimum. Adobe is working to resolve these problems".
For example, using medium compression, a color TIFF with an original size of 2.5MB will produce a PDF of 64k from Acrobat 3 but it is 253k from Acrobat 4, and a grayscale TIFF of 661,745 bytes produces a file of 81,527 bytes in Acrobat 3 but 248,340 bytes in version 4.
3. FLATNESS IN EPS FILES
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One of the potential problems in creating EPS and PS files is the way that postscript creates the illusion of curves by using straight lines -- the shorter the segments, the more it will look like a true curve, but the more processing that will be involved.
The resolution of the output device also has an effect, so that a low resolution proofing printer can often cope with a file that a high resolution imagesetter cannot.
This is a reason why it is generally best to leave the flatness setting blank in many programs which give you this option, because the program then picks a flatness setting to suit the resolution.
Illustrator and other some other programs allow you to have a dpi setting (via the attributes palette in Illustrator) that is not the same as the whole document's dpi, which can be useful in overcome a problem where an object has too many line segments to process. However, this can mean that artwork which looks fine in proof form, can visibly be made up of straight segments when printed at high resolution.
A subscriber to several email lists pointed out that programs such as Preflight and Flightcheck only look at a document's resolution to report a potential problem, not every item in the file, so a check on a file with generally high resolution will not point out that one or more items are set at 300dpi.
This variation in settings can help overcome printing problems with a file -- in fact we suggested it only a week or two ago to a newspaper publisher who was having trouble with a complex masthead which would print fine on its own, but which could cause the front page to often refuse to print when complete. However, it does open yet another field of problems.
4. IN PRINT TO ON-LINE
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We saw a note from Robert Rosenthal, publications coordinator of the Independent Press Association telling of their new publication, "From Print to Web: Publishing on the Web for Public Interest Magazines and Newspapers"
At 40 pages or so, it's just about to be published and was written by Linda Gardiner, publisher and editor of Women's Review of Books. It's for members of the IPA, but they sell it to non-members for US$25 plus shipping and handling.
He comments: "The guide is great because it approaches the new medium from the point of view of print publishers; it explains how each print publishing department has a web-based corollary and how the two formats can really complement each other. Also, it delves deep into the questions of "What to put on the site and why?" and "How to bring people to the site (and get them to spend money)". Plus, the focus is always on doing it cheaply!
The IPA has a web site at: http://www.indypress.org
6. UTILITIES/UPDATES
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A word processing package which provides another option to Word is Nota Bene, developed from XyWrite, and now a part of the Scholar's Workstation package of "tools for serious writers" which you can check out at <http://www.notabene.com>. There is a 14MB download of a 60-day trial Windows version.
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The EDITORIUM is a place for "Microsoft Word Add-Ins for Publishing Professionals": <http://www.editorium.com>
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According to Alsoft's OS 9 Compatibility Checker <http://www.alsoft.com> PageMaker 6.5.2 "appears compatible."
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You can visit <http://download.cnet.com> to locate the most popular Windows device drivers.
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The Babylon Translator is a software English-to-other-languages translation tool that can be downloaded from <http://www.babylon.com/>. The download size ranges from 6 to 8MB according to language, and then additional languages are available at 2.8 to 5MB. It is currently a Windows program but they are asking Mac and Linux users to register interest on their website. The company has also abolished the 100 day time limit on the program, making it totally free. You can also translate individual words on their website. The languages covered are English to Spanish, German, French, Italian, Dutch, Japanese, Portuguese and Hebrew.
7. HINTS
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When you use Photoshop 5.0's Crop Tool (get it by pressing the letter "C" and it will appear at the top of the toolbar) if you move the cropping border near the edge of your document, it snaps to the edge (which can be very annoying if you're trying to make a precise crop). To avoid the "snapping" just hold the Command-key (PC: Control-key) while dragging the Crop border and you can position it exactly where you'd like.
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David Kunkel read our Word into QXP tip last issue and added: "If you are creating content in Word 97 (Windows) for import into Quark, and you want your auto-generated bullets and number lists to be preserved after the import, you should save the document as Word 2x. The native Word 97 save won't bring these items into Quark. Hope this is suitable for your fine newsletter!"
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It seems there can be several reasons why JPEG files won't open in PageMaker and other page layout software (apart from not having the latest filters installed). Among these seem to be that they are CMYK rather than RGB -- if you are having problems, and even if you aren't, it can be worth opening in a photo editor like Photoshop and saving as TIFF, especially if the end product is intended for print.
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We received multiple thanks from several students producing a publication at a Danish university when we suggested that they could ask their printer if they could try a few things like gradients in the trim area of another job. We've even come across printers who are willing to put a small test in the area of another client's job which will be trimmed off -- maybe even print a sheet slightly larger if it wasn't going to make any difference to costs.
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Most of the HP printers including the 4mv and 5000 use a technique call Resolution Enhancement and Enhanced Levels of Gray. You have to set the Resolution Enhancement to "off" and the Enhanced Levels of Gray to "standard" in order for the software to override the default settings built into the printer. Until these settings are changed (in Pagemaker's or Freehand's print dialog box) it doesn't matter what screen you specify, the printer will override your settings. HP's PPD isn't defective. It's just that the majority of printer users prefer the smoother, finer screens that it produces. And it isn't the only printer make to have this problem.
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According to a spokesman for Adobe, InDesign 1.0 is not yet "Windows 2000" ready due primarily to the special relationship between InDesign and the printer driver. The PSCRIPT PostScript driver that will ship with Windows 2000 is effectively AdobePS 5.1.1+, the result of a joint project between Adobe and Microsoft. By the time Windows 2000 really ships, Adobe hopes to have the appropriate adjustments to that Windows 2000 PostScript driver and to InDesign such that printing and all other InDesign functions work under Windows 2000.
8. SOURCES OF INFORMATION
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Wanting to know how good you are at copyediting, or to set a test for someone else: <http://www.freep.com/jobspage/toolkit/dowtest.htm>. However, you will have to decide the answers for yourself.
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The Chicago Manual of Style is probably the most used style manual in the USA, and they have a Q&A Web site <http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/cmosfaq.html> which answers many style questions.
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There is a mailing list for users of Epson inkjets. To subscribe to Epson-Inkjet, send a message to majordomo@leben.com with the words "subscribe epson-inkjet" in the message. No subject is required.
9. LAST WORD
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Quark has handed responsibility for distribution, development, marketing and customer support of the Quark Publishing System to an affiliated company, Modulo Systems Corporation under the leadership of president Lee Silverman, This "server-based workgroup management software" which appeals particularly to newspapers is described in a press release as being "installed in over six hundred sites around the globe". That would seem to give an major opportunity to create rather than take over a major market among many other newspapers, either directly or through "partners".
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And a couple of justified criticisms from readers:
Peter Gadsby pointed out that we fell for the it's/its error last issue with a line which read "For many years it's use was restricted." It's enough to make Format hang its head in shame.
And in the last Last Word, we got Chris Mason's country wrong. We placed him in Antigua, when he's in Anguilla. Our apologies, and we have now taken the "virtual tour of Anguilla" at <http://net.ai/> suggested in Chris's signature.
Gordon Woolf
The Worsley Press
Hastings, Australia.
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