I found a PPD download on the Cannon website. It's for PageMaker files but I thought it might work. The problem is I don't have a clue where to save it to in the InDesign program. Can anyone help me? I need to have it in PhotoShop also. Or maybe there is somewhere that is can go into for all of Creative Suite or Adobe that would be available to all of the programs in the Suite.
Thanks for any help you might be able to give me.
Ann
PPD files
How is the printer connected? If memory serves, when I added my Phaser 790 (which is a network printer) the correct procedure was to launch the Windows Add Printer wizard and tell it it was a local printer, then add a standard TCP/IP port for it. Somewhere along the line the wizard asked for the PPD, which was stored in a download folder, and copied it into C:\WINDOWS\system32\spool\drivers\w32x86\3 and C:\WINDOWS\system32\spool\drivers\w32x86\xeroxphaser_7906c42 (I run XP). I don't know if the wizard really does more than that (though it does create the port and add the printer instance) so I'm not sure if it would be enough to copy the PPD to the folder (I suspect not).
Did you try searching for *.ppd to see what you have where now?
Peter
PPD files
PPD files are installed by the driver installer for the printer. If you have a driver for that ImageRunner printer and it is a PostScript printer, InDesign already has access to its PPD.
There is no way to hack in other PPD files in Adobe applications. There is no go reason for that anyway.
Most modern laser printers, especially color ones, do
not allow setting of halftone screens, angles, etc. given that most such devices have proprietary screening methods that also involve dithering to get the appropriate number of colors to print.
Are you trying to make masters for shooting with process cameras?
- Dov
Thank you so much for your quick reply. Maybe I'll have a few hair left on my head by the time this week is over. At least I can stop batting it against the wall.
It all makes sense to us now.
Ann
I guess I really didn't answer any of your questions. Now that the presses are running %26amp; I have a little more time, here's your answers:
The printer is a network printer, as to how it's connected, I'm not sure. I do know that we have a PostScript printer driver that was added after we got the printer.
The print pop-up gives us some options for halftones (like 7 of them) but none of them really give us the dot pattern we need.
The tech guy from Cannon has been helping us too %26amp; he's supposed to have some kind of answer for us by Friday.
Thanks for your ideas, they did make me feel like I'm not as batty as I was beginning to feel!
Ann
Desktop printers and digital copiers are not able to produce standard halftones in more than a few linescreen settings. Even imagesetters, which are much higher resolution, don't have infinite choices.
Halftone spots need to made from a matrix of printer dots, and as you raise the line screen you have fewer dots available to make each spot (keep in mind that most desktop printers are only 600 dpi, and even 1200 isn't a lot when you start breaking it up into 100 blocks for each spot to get a 100 lpi screen. At 100 lpi a 600 dpi device can produce a maximum of 37 shades of gray and a 1200 dpi device can do a maximum of 145, and the reality is that they probably do even fewer.
The number of shades you can produce is inversely proportional to the linescreen, and so is the level of fine detail, so most printers are optimized at some compromise screen value that gives acceptable shading (most people probably couldn't pick out anything less than a 5% change between steps) and level of detail.
I remember in the old days using Quark and telling the Xante printer to give me certain screens (as requested by my boss who was really fond of using 65 lpi), but the reality was that the printer rounded my number to the nearest value it was actually able to produce and we only had a half dozen or so real screen values available.
Peter
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