printers
Glen Collins
It will be used for colour and b&w. Good quality, but doesn't have to be
top of the range. Some people have recommended gettign a postscript
printer... is this worth while?
Regards
Glen Collins
Brains
> Can someone reccomend a good printer for use on a G4 400Mhz Macintosh?
Good? Most of them are good, but we need to know two things: your
budget, and what you expect to do with the printer. Oh I know you'd
_print_ with it, but what apps do you intend to use that will require
printed output?
> It will be used for colour and b&w. Good quality, but doesn't have to be
> top of the range. Some people have recommended gettign a postscript
> printer... is this worth while?
Most definitely, especially if you're doing desktop publishing. The
printing/pre-press industry lives and breathes PostScript, so if you
plan on fitting in with the rest, you have to be PostScript compliant,
and its best if you can do proofs via PostScript.
Quark XPress and Adobe's InDesign both expect to be able to print to a
PostScript printer. InDesign is even fussier than XPress, demanding
authentic Level 2 or better PostScript (printing to a HP laser, for
example, can crash the printer) in the RIP (raster image processor: the
device (software or hardware) that converts PostScript commands into the
stream of dots a printer can work with). Freehand 8 is considered the
program of choice for generating artwork that is true to the PostScript
spec (Adobe's own Illustrator still can't handle separations, nor does
it seem to get colours right, in my experience) and it is much faster
than Adobe's competition product.
Buying a printer with PostScript inside can add as much as $2,000 to the
cost of a printer, though. Thankfully, you can buy a software RIP that
runs on your Mac and not inside the printer, which still gives you the
ability to print PostScript correctly. The trade-off is that all
software RIPs are processor-hungry and RAM-hungry. The Birmy PowerRIP
and Infowave's StylusScript are the two most popular.
Brains
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