In the work that I do I need to be able to send print jobs of thousands of copies to my printer. I'm printing using a thermal label printer, where it is not uncommon to print that many copies of a label. Each label prints in about one second and comes off a roll.
I'm not sure why a 999 copy limitation was included into the latest versions of Illustrator (and the other Adobe products for that matter). Illustrator should be able to print at least 9999 copies. (Word can print up to 32767 copies of a document.)
Press print and then click "setup" in the bottom left. In there you should see a "number of copies" option, crank that up and enjoy...I assume, it will certainly go over 999, but I didn't want to try it as my boss might come in and beat me with all the paper I just used.
Be aware that I don't think they reset, so if later you want to print 1 copy out make sure you turn it down.
Regards
Paul
<http://www.verypdf.com/pdfprint/pdf-print-cmd.html>
Allows command line prnting of PDF docs. It might be exacty what you need. I havn't used it so can comment on it's output or colour management options.
It would also have the added bonus of being able to be run from another machine without have to have an extra illy licence to print from.
The .prn files will be the raw data thatilly would have sent to the prnter so the colour management would be correct.
BRETT