[X-Newbies] Re: Printing problems with a G5

Charles Martin chasm at mac.com
Mon Sep 20 15:09:03 PDT 2004


> From: Gen Hadlow Mac Impact Dbn <ghadlow at iafrica.com>
>
> I hope someone can help.
> The computer is a G5/2Ghz with 1.5Gbs Ram. System 10.3.4
> The printer is an HP 2500 CM Professional Series Colour Printer with
> postscript. It is connected to a network via Ethernet. On the network 
> are a
> number of PC's that print to this printer as well.
>
> The problem is:
> Printing from the G5 takes ages compared to the PC's.

After reading your post in detail, I have some thoughts and guesses, 
but no easy answers for you.

> Using Macromedia FreeHand MX most pages come out with nothing on 
> except for
> the following type of message:
>
> POSTSCRIPT ERROR: undefined OFFENDING COMMAND:
> VMSTATUS max: 7720064 avail: 6477900 level: 2
>
> The max: and avail: numbers change depending on which file one tries to
> print.
>

You are correct in surmising that the fundamental problem is memory, or 
more specifically virtual memory. You're running out of VM space before 
the file can complete its rendering.

 From your description, it sounds to like the printer either doesn't 
have a built-in postscript interpreter, or the one it has is obsolete. 
As you mention, printing from things that bypass Postscript and use 
QuickDraw (or PCL in the PC's case) work fine.

> I suspect that the printer needs additional ram but need confirmation 
> of
> this before I can persuade the powers that be to purchase extra ram.
>
Couldn't hurt, might solve the problem, the RAM is probably dirt cheap 
... what's holding them back I wonder?

You might investigate a "software RIP" to help with the problem. 
Basically, I think the problem stems from the fact that you are 
probably the only person on staff sending large Postscript files to 
this printer, which is why it's acting differently for you than it is 
for others.

Another step you might take (I recall this from AGES ago in newspaper 
production) is sending your Postscript files down "ASCII" instead of 
"Binary" (I think you can only specify this if you are using Quark 
Xpress). That used to solve the problem when I sent big PS files to LWs 
with low amounts of RAM.

_Chas_

FL-MUG: central Florida's Macintosh User Group.
Meetings: second Thursday of the month, 6-9pm,
at the Orlando Science Center.
http://www.flmug.org




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