Questions List
- What's this all about?
- How can I contribute?
- My question isn't answered here!
- I sent a print job to a color printer, but it comes out in black and white or greyscale. Why?
- Tell me about confocalpr (the Codonics printer)
- Tell me about Squid.
- Tell me about the new poster-size printer.
- Can I print to the poster printer from a Mac?
- How do I setup my poster for printing?
- Can I use PowerPoint to make my poster?
- Hey, PowerPoint limits me to 56"!
- Can I make a poster with Canvas?
- Can I make a poster with Illustrator?
- How can I set up my poster with TeX?
- How do I get my poster out of the Design Jet printer?
- Tell me about Cl- (the Miller lab color laser printer).
- Can I print to 35 mm film to make slides?
- Hey, why is my printer a webserver?
- USB Printer Sharing (Macs)
Questions and Answers
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Q: What's this all about?
A: I'm compiling information about the various color printers and how best to use them all in one spot for easy reference.
I'm nowhere near done. Think of this as a peek at a notepad on my desk.
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Q: How can I contribute?
A: E-mail suggested answers to karel@brandeis.edu
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Q: My question isn't answered here!
A: Ask your question in the Tech Support forum.
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Q: I sent a print job to a color printer, but it comes out in black and white or greyscale. Why?
A: On many software packages (e.g. PowerPoint), the default print driver settings are to convert to B&W or greyscale when printing. Look for the setting under "File, Print" or wherever your print driver settings live.
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Q: Tell me about confocalpr (the Codonics printer)
A: Get Ed to write something here.
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Q: Tell me about Squid.
A: Squid is an Epson Color Stylus 3000 wide-format ink jet printer. It's in the confocal lab in Bassine.
Squid is not a postscript printer (despite the sticker on the printer). We have a software RIP to allow postscript printing to the printer, but no one ever seemed to be interested in using it, so it's not running right now - generally you can get ok results from MacOS or Windows using the native print drivers (EscP2 or whatever the dang Epson printer language is called).
A while back, I posted a commented version of Epson's instructions for setting up to print from Windows 95 or NT.
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Q: Tell me about the new poster-size printer.
A: It's a Hewlett-Packard Design Jet 500PS. It prints on 42 inch wide rolls of paper. See the instruction poster for how to load the paper. There are two ways to mount the spindle through the roll. One of them is wrong (the "toilet paper roll" problem).
Some readme documents that came with the printer RIP software
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Q: Can I print to the poster printer from a Mac?
A: You can't print directly to it through the Chooser from a Mac. You must print to the software RIP, which is running on an iMac next to the printer. The correct spool is "DesignJet 500PS 42@junco" in the Biology zone of the Chooser.
The correct PPD for the printer is HP500P42.PPD. You can find this on Squirrel Public. You'll need this to be in System Folder:Extensions:Printer Descriptions on the Mac you print from.
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Q: How do I setup my poster for printing?
A: Collect all your figures into a single file. In the drawing/layout software, you should use create a blank canvas/slide/drawing that has the desired dimensions for your poster. If you print in "portrait" mode, your canvas should be 42" wide. If you print in "landscape" mode, your canvas should be 42" high.
You also want to use "Page Setup" or the equivalent print driver command to tell it about the size of the page. Generally, you want to define a custom paper size that is 42" wide by however tall your poster is. Examples:
- You want a 42" high by 60" wide poster. Define a custom paper size that is 42" wide by 60" high, then print in landscape mode.
- You want a poster that is 36" high by 42" wide. Define a custom paper size that is 42" wide by 36" high, and print in portrait mode.
Please don't create a huge paper size "just to make sure"; you'll just waste relatively expensive paper.
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Q: Can I use PowerPoint to make my poster?
A: Maybe. Of all the programs people have tried, PowerPoint has given us many problems. We recommend against, although it has worked for some.
If you use powerpoint, put your whole poster in a single slide. See q&a below regarding size limitations.
Chaelon had a positive experience with PowerPoint:
I did everything on a G4 Mac with PowerPoint. All my data figures were
from IgorPro, and all of them were exported as already-done layouts (not
directly as graphs). I exported them to the clipboard and into PowerPoint
as PostScript PICT format. Everything in my case was in b&W and greys, but
I doubt that would matter. All my fonts were either Helvetica or Times
Roman, and they ranged in size from 16pt to I think 54pt. I had bar
graphs, raw data, photos, text boxes, etc.
The size was set on page setup as Custom, 35" x 21" (because I wanted the
final to be 70" x 42"--the paper is 42" high). Ed set the work-around you
mentioned (fit to paper). The first time I had the top and bottom cut off
a bit, so I left a bigger margin around the edges. It ripped fast and it
printed perfectly. No errors. I think if I had set it up to be 35" x 20
or such, I wouldn't have to worry about the margins.
My only complaint is by the time I had a lot of figures and text in the
PowerPoint slide, the performance of the machine got very very slow, rather
unpleasant to fidget with layout. That may be unavoidable with any
platform, it may just be a memory/processing speed issue (this comp is G4
with I think 256 Meg ram).
Overall, PowerPoint worked well for me. Three others of us in the lab used
Illustrator or AppleWorks and both caused small errors.
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Q: Hey, PowerPoint limits me to 56"!
A: Yes. PowerPoint will not let you define a slide size greater than 56" on a side. (Tested with PowerPoint 98 (Mac)).
A helpful page from Clemson suggests creating a smaller slide size (1/2 of the final size), then scaling up when printing.
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Q: Can I make a poster with Canvas?
A: Yes
Astrid writes:
I made my poster like this:
- I made all figures with either Origin6.0 or CorelDraw7.373 or
CorelPhotoPaint7.373 and saved them as .tif or .bmp, but without any
numbers or text.
- I imported them into Canvas8.0.1 using the image/aquire function.
- I made all numbers and text directly in Canvas.
- The OS was Windows 2000 Professional.
Then I gave my Canvas file to Ed. He opened it on his computer and it
looked good, and then he printed it. The outcome was mostly ok, but a few
numbers, text boxes and lines I had drawn in Canvas were slightly shifted,
and I don't know why.
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Q: Can I make a poster with Illustrator?
A: Yes.
Bob writes:
I printed my poster, it was successful.
- Platform: Windows ME
- Program: Adobe Illustrator
Constructing the poster: Make the size of the document the size of the
final poster. If figures are made in another program, save them as EPS and
'place' them into Illustrator.
Transferring the final poster to be printed: There are various EPS formats
that Illustrator outputs, they all seem to be semi proprietary to
Illustrator because when exporting EPS you must select an Illustrator
version to be backwards compatible to. I saved my final version as an
'Illustrator EPS' file using the defaults that Illustrator picked and then
transferred that file along with all my source EPS graphics I
had placed in it.
This final step might be neccessary depending on how you place EPS files
into Illustrator. When placing files you can 'link' them to the source
EPS. This keeps your Illustrator master file very small but REQUIRES that
it can find the source file. So when you save to the final EPS you will
want to transfer all the source EPS files that had been placed along
with the master EPS file.
Printing: Ed printed my final EPS file by dragging and dropping to the
printer itself (no need to actually open the EPS in say Illustrator or
Photoshop). Printing started within a minute and proceeded with almost no
problems.
Problems: Some of the placed EPS files (actully just the color legend
symbols from an Igor layout) had text shifted on the final printout as
compared to what I saw in Illustrator. This seems to be a problem with
the program that generated the EPS file to be placed (in this case Igor).
To minimize this I would suggest keeping the text in your original EPS file
(e.g. your graphs exported from Igor) to a minimum. It is very easy to add
all the text you want once in Illustrator and you are better guaranteed of
the correct placement of these objects.
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Q: How can I set up my poster with TeX?
A: Mark van Rossum wrote:
I using that latex poster package.
This currently uses a width of 115 cm (but in landscape this becomes the
height).
The papersize is set in poster.tex , config.poster, you'll prbably have to
change this slightly.
Finally, to convert your postersize postscript to handout letter format do
psresize -W115cm -H175cm -pletter $1.ps > $1.letter.ps
(this changes of course with above settings)
To see all available colors with colordvi, you can use the (attached file)
This appears to have been a fairly successful approach. Make sure, however, that your postscript file does not specify a page width greater than 42" (106.68 cm) -- that will result in postscript errors when printing.
Albert wrote in with more details:
I am sending to you a tar-file with all the files I used to
generate my poster with LaTeX.
Once a ps is generated, the printer takes it happily by just
putting the job directly in its queue.
The contents of the poster are in poster.tex (title, authors,
affiliations, poster number) and in contents (sections, subsections,
figures, references). The size of the poster is set in the preamble
of poster.tex (\textheight and \textwidth) and in config.poster.
To create the ps, I run the script dvps and to view it I have
xsee. To print hand-outs I use the script dvitolettps that
reduces the poster to fit in a letter sized paper.
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Q: How do I get my poster out of the Design Jet printer?
A: When the printer tells you that the ink is dry, you can press the "form feed and cut" button and the printer will cut your poster from the roll for you neatly.
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Q: Tell me about Cl- (the Miller lab color laser printer).
A: It's a Minolta-QMS Magicolor 2200 Desklaser. As far as I know, there is no way to print to it directly from MacOS or UNIX.
To print to it directly via TCP/IP, install the Crown Print Monitor on your Windows machine, along with the printer drivers.
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Q: Can I print to 35 mm film to make slides?
A: Yes. We have a film printer (Lasergraphics LFR) in the Confocal lab. It's attached to junco (the iMac). Contact Ed about using the film printer.
I put the instructions online.
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Q: Hey, why is my printer a webserver?
A: Most new printers with integrated print servers have web interfaces. Go to http://yourprintername.bio.brandeis.edu or whatever and check it out. You should probably assign a password or otherwise restrict access to the print server if you are concerned about security.
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Q: USB Printer Sharing (Macs)
A: There are several Epson inkjet printers around that are connected to Macs via USB and then shared through USB Printer Sharing.
You must install the correct printer drivers and USB printer sharing on each Mac that will connect to the printer.
I don't know how to print to these from Windows or Linux. It seems it should be possible since they use the SLP protocol and TCP/IP.
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