Simple vector transparency - printing problems

Morning everybody,
I'm having problems printing a PDF which has been generated from Indesign CS3. The problem also arises when printing directly from Indesign. Everything appears OK when on screen.
I have a background colour, in front of which i have placed an Illustrator CS3 file which is a row of white squares with gaps (transparent) between then. The squares are white, but I really want them to fade from a hue of the background colour to fully transparent. To achieve this I have used a gradient feather, going from opacity 50% to opacity 0%. [See sceenshot]
My problem is that all the squares show up when I print the file, even the ones which should have an opacity level of 0%. On the printout the gradient feather is visible (i.e. the squares 'fade out'), but they do not compeltely fade out to fully transparent.
Does anyone have any tips?
Thanks very much for any help with this.
Robin

Thanks a lot for your reply.
I don't have a brilliant understanding of colour, but I believe that all the colours in the document are process [see screenshot].
Turning on overprint preview doesn't change the appearance of the document. Nor does turning on simulate overprint in acrobat. In both cases, the appearance of the document on screen is how i want it to print.

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Save as EPS - Include Vector Data - Printing problems

Hey everyone
I'm having an issue with PDFs that I send to a specific newspaper and only them. The problem only occurs in the vector data that is saved in the EPS to be distilled.
Here's an overview of my workflow
*Build ad in Photoshop CS3
*Save EPS with Preview:Macintosh(8Bits);Encoding: ASCII85; Include Vector Data; all other options not checked
*Distill EPS to Press Quality PDF
*Send to newspaper
The problem looks like their RIP is choking on the vector data (primarily text) in the ad. It appears to start to print the text and then just stops or prints a bunch of garbage where the text should be.
I have their in-house Distiller settings and use those now instead of Press Quality. This should rule out any problems with the Distiller settings.
I send dozens of PDFs a week to multiple publications and only have trouble with this one. Is it possible that the "Preview" and/or "Encoding" in the EPS is the problem? Any suggestions what the bare bones settings should be for "Preview" and "Encoding" for the EPS? I want to keep the Vector Data b/c the outputted text remains crisp.
Thanks!

I agree with Mike.
A lot of newspapers are not making a lot of profit and, as a result, may not have up-to-date RIPs. This is demonstrated by your statement that this is the only publication you have problems with.
If your only concern is file size, know that either way, you're dealing with small files. Try the direct-from-Photoshop route with the paper and see what happens. Get the production guru at the paper to work with you on solving the problem.
Also, what happens if you Distill the file as an industry-standard PDF/X-1a file. If you see that the file is compliant, you shouldn't have a problem.
Neil

Leopard printing problems on several printers (Am I the only one?)

Since installing Leopard shortly after it was released, I've had flakiness with printing:
- With Tiger, when I printed, I could open the printer's window, and see the print job queued. The job would finish, disappear from the window, and everything would be fine.
- When the job was printing, the printer icon would appear in the Dock. When the job was done, the icon would disappear from the Dock. Simple.
With Leopard, printing has worked, but I have never seen a print job appear in a PrinterProxy window. I print, the printer outputs the job, and PrinterProxy is always blank. The printer icon appears in the Dock, and stays there forever. I found that I could ctrl-click on the icon and select the Auto Quit option (Hooray!), but that only worked for a while. Then the icons started staying in the Dock again. When I click on the Dock, there is no more Auto Quit option... just the "Application Not Responding" message. I have to force quit Printer Proxy after every time I print.
What's stranger is how long it takes for the PrinterProxy app to start up. The icon in the Dock bounces for well over a minute. Sometimes, the job finishes printing before the app is launched. If I switch between apps using Cmd-Tab, I can select the PrinterProxy app, but it never actually displays; instead, I just revert to the current window.
This is true for every printer I use, and as a traveling consultant, I use several. It is true whether I am printing via Airport, or over a direct Internet or USB connection.
The printers that are permanently in my Printer List are:
Canon i9100
Brother MFC-8840
Epson Stylus Photo 220
HP LaserJet 1320N
HP LaserJet 8800
HP LaserJet 6570
HP Color LaserJet 5550
Adobe PDF 8.0
All of these have the same problems. What's worse is, when I have a printing problem, there is no way to diagnose it, since the print jobs never show up in the PrinterProxy.
I have reset my printing system many times. I have deleted and re-added my printers many times. I have downloaded drivers from the manufacturer's sites, and reinstalled Leopard's default drivers. Nothing makes a difference. Strangely, after updating to 10.5.2, the Auto Quit problem went away for awhile, then returned spontaneously.
At the thread below, I show some of my system and crash logs from a prior discussion. Someone was helping me with the problem, but after asking me to post my logs, he seems to have dropped off the thread.
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=7013209#7013209
I can't believe this problem is endemic to Leopard. I know many people who seem to use Leopard without any problems at all. (They even print once in a while!) And yet, as a fairly advanced user, I can't believe I'm the only one having this problem! My system is pretty plain vanilla, with no weird mods, hacks or apps. Pretty much just straightforward creative and productivity apps. I use it daily for business, so I try to keep all wacky stuff off of it.
There must be a solution, short of doing a clean install. Can anyone help? Are there PrinterProxy-related files I can delete when I reset the Printer System that might help resolve this? Prefs?
Thanks,
David

I'm having exactly the same problem with a Lexmark C760.
When I inspect the Activity Monitor while opening the Printer Icon from the Dock (or press the Button "Open Print Queue" in the "Print & Fax" System Preferences), I can see the Printer Icon as "Printer Proxy (Not Responding)" marked in red in the processes list. The Dock icon bounces for quite a while, and after about 2 minutes, a Printer List actually appears under the PrinterProxy application and the process in Activity Monitor changes its name to "(null)" and its color to black.
Though there is no entry in the PrinterProxy list when I print something from another application while keeping the window open, I can select "Supply Levels" and the correct information appears, so it seems to be functional.
It also seems that there are several copies of the drivers remaining, as the application in the Dock is named "Lexmark C760 (4)", probably from my attempts to remove and reinstall the driver. Is there some interference with old installations of the drivers that still lurk somewhere, hidden in the depth of the many libraries? How can I get rid of the previously installed drivers for good?

Printing problems with InDesign CS3 running on OS 10.6

I recently upgrade my old G4 Mac (OS 10.4) to a new Mac Mini running OS 10.6.6. I am still running CS3 and have encountered only one problem. When I print multiple copies documents from InDesign that contain several layers, each copy is processed separately, so that it can take several minutes just to send the print job to the printer if I'm printing over 20 copies. Then once the print job is processed the printer pauses between every copy, which is tripling the printing time. If I print a simpler document with only one or two layers it processes all the copies at once, as it should. I am printing on an Okidata 6150 color laser printer.
I never had this problem on my old computer. I'm wondering if this is one of the "unsupported" bugs of running CS3 on Snow Leopard. I want to make sure that this is a problem unique to running CS3 with Snow Leopard before I go ahead and upgrade to CS4 or CS5.
computer: Mac Mini core 2 duo 2.4 ghz processors, 4 gb RAM, printer: Okidata 6150 DN color laser printer.

Hi again Peter
It is version 5.0.4. I updated it when I newly installed it a week ago in my new computer, and then again updated it just yesterday.
I might mention that before I got my new computer, I was running Mac OS 4.11, and was using InDesign 3.0. I had bought InDesign CS3 about a year ago, but hadn't gotten around to using it since version 3.0 had been working fine, and I was used to it. Then, when I got my new computer, I decided it was time to use the newer version. However, while using InDesign 3.0 with the old Mac OS 4.11, a printing problem popped up there, too, a few months ago... and it also involved printing problems with Adobe Reader. I contacted Adobe, and they sent me a patch which fixed it. I will contact Adobe again if need be, although I thought I'd start here first to see if it was a common enough problem that someone might be able to provide a free and routine answer.
Richard
Date: Tue, 15 Jun 2010 20:10:13 -0600
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Printing problems with InDesign CS3 with Mac OS 10.6.3
I neglected to ask what version of indesign CS3 you are using. I also
notice that Mac OSX 10.6.4 has just been released. It actually
addresses some CS3-specific issues, though they seem to be related to
launching the apps, not printing. It may be worth trying to update,
nonetheless.
Peter Truskier
Premedia Systems, Inc.
510-655-4454
>

Indesign & PDF printing problems

Hello!
I have a paper to be printed out on a Laser Printer (600-1200)
It is a black and white document.
The problem is that the results are very different, when you print directly from Indesign CS3, (which is the Indesign Document), & PDF. The simple document to printed out contains editable text + object graphics.
When you print the document DIRECTLY from InDesign CS3, on the black and white laser printer, the result is nice and smooth color plates.
BUT, when I export the document to a PDF, and print out on the same printer, everything is rasterized (dots).
The settings in export to PDF is high quality, and I also tried selecting quality 2. (which is said to be the best for laser printers.
In the print directly from InDesign CS3, it is the program's own settings, but if I print out as PDF its the printer settings.
Someone who knows what the problem might be, why so different kind of printouts?
Grateful for tips and solution to the mystery!

You haven't said what printer this is. It makes a difference if it is Postscript, and what the settings are in your preferences for handling of Black when printing directly from ID.
To be sure you get solid black text when you export, make sure there is no color profile conversion, or that you have selected preserve numbers.
>When you print the document DIRECTLY from InDesign CS3, on the black and white laser printer, the result is nice and smooth color plates.
You lost me here. What color plates? You said this was a B&W document.
Peter

Printing Problems with PDF - Adobe Acrobat

Printer - HP Deskjet 3070A
Laptop - Asus Zenbook running Windows 7 Home Premium
Issue: Printing problems with PDF (Adobe Acrobat Reader)
Dear All,
Please help!
My printer was working absolutely perfectly until my brother in law recently needed to borrow my printer. He plugged in his laptop running Windows 8 (awful thing that is). Since he did this to print his own PDF, I cannot print mine.
Although all the text will appear on the page perfectly both in the document view and on actual printing, it appears that some of the transparent formatting stuff on a PDF - such as boxes you have to fill in and transparent areas (such as you find on glorious tax forms) are omitted completely. In fact, in their place I was getting a single black dot. Now, after uninstalling and re-installing updates for the printer, windows 7, adobe acrobat reader, etc.etc. I get squat. Just all the text laid out but none of the shading or boxes.
I have tried fiddling with the printer settings; the print as 'photo' option, dpi settings, greyscale - as much as I can think of and I am thoroughly stumped.
In a desperate attempt, I even installed the Universal Printer Drivers - thinking it might have been that. No. All I got was a page of gobbledygook. Consequently, I uninstalled and reinstalled the normal drivers again.
If there are any wonderful people out there with any fabulous ideas about how I can get my shading and boxes back; I'd very much appreciate it. Sadly I have a tax return to fill out (which is already fabulously late) and need my printer to work!
Much appreciation in advance x

Hey there @Reverie!
Thanks for posting on the HP Forums!
I can see that the printer is no longer printing in the correct format after it was plugged into the Windows 8 computer! You mentioned you have run the updates and uninstalled/re-installed the printer software. Have you uninstalled and re-installed the Adobe software? Are you getting the same issue from other programs as well? Are you getting the same issues if you are logged in as a different user on the computer?
I have located the HP Update Software Utility that may be able to help. You can download an run the utility. It may be able to locate any other updates for the printer.
I would also recommend running a disk cleanup on the computer to clear any temporary files and junk files that may be causing some performance or software issues. If you do not know how to run a disk cleanup on the computer please follow this document regarding Delete files using Disk Cleanup. It is recommended to restart the computer after a disk cleanup. After the restart try the print job again!
Let me know if that helped and thanks again for posting on the HP Forums!
Cbert
I work on behalf of HP.
Please click “Accept as Solution” if you feel my post solved your issue, it will help others find the solution.
Click the “Kudos, Thumbs Up" at the bottom of this post to say “Thanks” for helping!

Troubleshooting Leopard printing problems

Leopard printing problems fall into several categories
a) Faulty or missing Leopard print driver
b) Faulty implementation of the print command from the active application
c) Faulty equipment, eg printer, cables, etc
d) Faulty networking/sharing
e) Faulty or incomplete software installation
The fact that a driver is included with Leopard is no guarantee that it will work. I have heard it from HP's tech staff that several of their drivers installed with Leopard are malfunctioning and I expect that many other printer manufacturers rushed out some poorly tested drivers in order to meet Leopard's shipping deadline.
Equally, some non-Apple applications have not yet properly tested their print command under Leopard so they cannot be used to reliably test whether a print driver is working or not. To get a more reliable indicator, save a print job as a PDF and then open the PDF in Preview and print it from there - or print a simple text page from TextEdit.
Also be sure to check cable connections carefully and if possible, try a different cable to make sure that this isn't the cause of printing problems.
Networking/sharing is fraught with pitfalls especially if the network is wireless. If possible, check printer sharing over a wired Ethernet network. There may also be issues when the print driver is not the same version on all computers in the network. To ensure that there are no remnants of a previous driver it's a good idea to completely uninstall previous drivers and then reinstall the most recent driver. To do this (for example on a 10.4 system):
1. Delete the printer by opening Printer Setup Utility, highlighting the printer if it is listed and clicking on the Delete button.
2. Clear the printer folder by navigating to Hard Drive/Library/Printers and dragging the offending printer-specific folder to the Trash.
3. Clear the Printer Preferences by searching in the System for "com.apple.print" and dragging all files so named to the Trash.
4. Empty the Trash
5. Repair Disk Permissions
6. Download the latest drivers for your printer and install.
7. Open Printer Setup Utility and if the printer is listed, highlight it and press the Delete button at the top of the window. Then click the Add icon, single-click the name of the printer and click Add so that the printer appears in the printer list.
8. To check that it works, create a test page in TextEdit, configure the print job in the Print window and print.
Simon

When you post unmark as a question in the header. If you missed your opportunity, just hit solved.

Windows 7 Printing Problem

I have a very peculiar printing problem using Acrobat 9.5.2. The pages always prints like this:
<http://www.mytechnet.talktalk.net/Out-of-the-loop.pdf>
When I print the same page in Bullzip (a free pdf creator) it prints/creates the correct English file that can be read in Reader.
I am using Windows 7 Professional with 8 Gb ram and 2 TB Disk Drive (1.8 TB free). Is my installation corrupted or is there a simple fix for it.
Thanks.

This is a classic error when the fonts used in the document and your systems fonts aren't compatible or aren't the same. What you could do is to NOT TO RELY on systems fonts as defaults and everything should work normally. To do this try this:
1) Go to Start/Windows Orb
2) Click on Devices and Printers
3) Right-click on Adobe PDF
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You are now done and your documents should look normal on the screen.
See this picture (Click on it to magnify it if necessary):
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Printing problems with CS3

Whenever I go to print an ID or AI file for the first time it is beyond slow. It does not matter if it is a large file (although ID files of any size are very slow, 30 seconds or more just to scroll to a new page) or a small file, I get a minute or more of beach ball before the print dialog box comes up. After the first print, it prints instantly for the rest of the time the app is open. Has anyone else seen this in CS3? Any fix?
MGuilfoile
G5/2500, 10.4.11, 8 gigs RAM

I haven't tried opening anything as a new user. Is this a known solution to slow printing problems? I don't see the connection. I'm not sure how to create a new user (although I'm sure it's pretty simple.) I'm the only person who uses this computer, so it's never come up. Thanks for the advice, however, I'll give it a try.
MGuilfoile

Home network print problem

Something very strange,
Our home network is a Vista PC with an Epson 2880 printer attached to the Vista PC. My wife's XP PC connects through our simple network and prints on the Epson printed by going through my computer. Simple set up, no problems. We both use CS4, set so CS4 manages color, correct Epson paper profile, printer color management off, all the correct settings. Both our monitors are color corrected with Spyder3.
When she prints from her computer every picture has a magenta cast. Even more strange is when I copy the same picture onto my PC and open it in my copy of CS4 the picture looks normal but CS4 will not print it. CS4 says I do not have a printer attached. I can open any other picture in the same CS4 session and print with no problems. Every time I try to print a picture that she printed CS4 says there is no printer. This occurs even when I have copied the picture onto my computer and opened it on my computer. I have tried renaming the picture and even changing the format to TIFF or JPEG but CS4 still refuses to print it.
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Try setting the default printer on both computers to a generic one (like Fax).
If you don't have one, download it here:
http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/product.jsp?product=pdrv&platform=win
You may have to delete the Epson first and then re-install.
This means you will have to select the Epson from the Print dialog each time but if it fixes the problem it's worth it.

Windows 10 caused printer problems

Some of us found that uninstalling the printer and using the original CD to install like a new printer fixed problems like loss of the scan feature. I am shocked that days after posts of printer problems caused by Windows 10 have not been answered by HP on this forum. The solution above is so simple! My next computer will not be HP. No support !!!!!

Hello , Welcome to the HP Forums, I hope you enjoy your experience! To help you get the most out of the HP Forums, I would like to direct your attention to the HP Forums Guide First Time Here? Learn How to Post and More. I came across your post about the sound, and wanted to assist you! To start, can you provide me with the Product Number of your notebook? Here is a link you can use that will help you find your Model and Product Number: How Do I Find My Model Number or Product Number?
In the meantime, make sure you have drivers installed for your product that work with Windows 10. You can find them using this site: HP Products - Where Do I Find Windows 10 Drivers and Software for My Model? If you are still having trouble, then you can try using the Go back to an earlier build option, in your System Settings: HP Notebook PCs - Upgrading to Windows 10
Once you are back to your original Operating System, check to see if you are experiencing the same issue. If not, then you may consider holding off on the Windows 10 update for a few weeks, until drivers can be updated. Please let me know if this information was helpful by clicking the thumbs up below.
Have a great day!

More PDF Printing Problems

There are lots of notes in this forum crying about PDF printing problems. For what it's worth, I'd like to add mine.
I'm using Jakarta FOP to generate a PDF on the fly from XML data. The PDFs it's producing are read and displayed nicely by Adobe Acrobat and print from Acrobat without a problem.
I've also written a simple desktop app that exercises the java.print package. (I won't bore anybody with a listing.) It uses the PrintServiceLookup to discover the two networked printers I have attached to my machine, using DocFlavor.INPUT_STREAM.AUTOSENSE. I have it discover all the supported document flavors. Here's the result:
application/octet-stream
application/x-java-jvm-local-objectref
image/gif
image/jpeg
image/png
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I don't see application/pdf on my list of supported document flavors. Should I? If that's a requirement, what do I have to do to the printer to get it on the list? Why is Adobe Acrobat smart enough to print to a printer wo/ this flavor and javax.print not? TIA - MOD

Now I get it - I can't send PDFs from Java to a printer. A careful reading of forum threads and John Zukowski's note have driven a stake into the heart of the vampire.
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The printers I have aren't Postscript, so suggestions to ask FOP to generate Postcript won't help me.
Adobe's site didn't offer any relief.
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Sun, are you listening? - MOD

Solved Freehand 10 Printing Problem

Apparently all that was needed was to reselect the printer in the Mac System Print & Fax Preferences. Freehand now prints as well as it ever did.
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Although the Epson was selected it was apparently not identified as the active printer. Rebooting the printer selection process ended the troubles. Very simple after trying every other imaginable solution.
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Effectively, downgrading to cups-1.5.3-6 solves the problem.
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Airport Extreme Printing Problem with HP Deskjet.

Hello ... I wonder if any helpful folks can assist me with my printing problem? I am using Tiger on a new Intel imac with a HP Deskjet 960C. This printer is listed as having the latest drivers included within Tiger and works perfectly when connected via USB so my problem I guess is not with the software....I have disconnected everything and plugged everything back together again. I also deleted the printer from the printer list within the Printer Setup Utility application.... The imac recognisies the printer and upon pressing the print button everything feels as though its just going to work. The blue barber shop scroll appears but the printer fails to kick into gear and I get the big red exclamation mark appearing in the status box .... I would really love to try and sort this annoying error ... Any ideas? Thanks. Book G4 Mac OS X (10.4.4)

Hello jds17. Welcome to the Apple Discussions!
Unfortunately, not all USB printers are compatible with AirPort base stations.
Take a look at one of these iFelix Unofficial AirPort Printer Compatibility links, depending on which AirPort base station you have:
o 802.11g AirPort Extreme Base Station (AEBS) or AirPort Express Base Station (AX)
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Also, you may find the following Apple article helpful.

Not printing text-only graphics on Canon. Not printer problem-print ok on Brother and another network Apple prints ok on Canon. Believe a computer setting was inadvertently reset. What setting and how do I reset?

Not printing text only on Canon--grahics print ok. Not printer problem. Prints ok on a Brother and another network Apple prints ok on Canon. Believe a computer setting was inadvertently reset. What setting and how do I reset?

Without your printer model numbers, readers can only give you vague general directions.
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... shows a list of all set-up printers.
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Simple vector transparency - printing problems

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