Prinergy Naming?

PantherMac

Well-known member
Quick question for those w/ Prinergy Experience - I've got a new EVO install, and the way the software re-names my input PDF's is infuriating! Anything more than a dozen characters (my job# is 6 digits!!!), and my filename half the time gets munged into something completely worthless (234S5C9~2.pdf), and half the time it processes fine (123456_Newsletter.p0001.pdf).
I can't seem to dig anything up online describing the rules (and frankly, there doesn't appear to be any!), and was wondering what other folks are doing w/ their filenames?
Thanks.

- Mac
 
Re: Prinergy Naming?

Hi Mac
At what point is the file being renamed? If it is after imposition then you need to edit the file naming section (Respect Mac Filenames ON) in your Output from Imposition templates. I have seen this from one particular mac where the pdf's created were being corrupted.

Andrew
 
Re: Prinergy Naming?

Thanks Andrew,

Its actually a bigger problem for me w/ refining the 1-ups! I like to send the refinded PDF's to certain customer's as proofs, so that they get the "Ripped' file (they like that... and seeing the traps for some reason?).

So I make my source file something polite and relevant like "123456_CorpBroSpanish" and tag it w/ the appropriate extension (.indd, .eps, .ai, .qxp etc.). I make a PDF of that file (somehow - distiller or export from Adobe Apps), and I get a file called "123456_CorpBroSpanish.pdf".
Handy. I now know which source file made which PDF, since they have the same name.

Now, I take this snazzy file to my EVO box, refine it, and get a file back called: "048086~3.PDF"

I shit-you-not, this just happened tonight:

Source: 048086_GlobaLinxSpanish.indd
Input to Prinergy: 048086_GlobaLinxSpanish.pdf
Output from Prinergy: 048086~1.PDF


The only saving grace, is it keeps the first 6 digits (my job #), and the last number is +usually+ the correct page number (a real bitch when you've got big books).

Thanks.

- Mac

Edited by: Mac on Apr 29, 2008 7:59 PM
 
Re: Prinergy Naming?

Will this help? When we name files we keep it short, using the first 3 letters for the name of the job, the date, and page numbers (preceded by section #).

For ex. new0428a28


This keeps the pdf's from weirding out as you described...verry annoying!!X-(
 
Re: Prinergy Naming?

Thanks Plategirl, that's exactly the kind of thing that I've been trying to toy around with, but can't seem to find anything consistent! I don't understand why the system isn't able to cope w/ long file names (and the inconsistency, is the biggest PIA!) Right when you think you've found the right mix, you get a job that goes goofy.
Thanks.

- Mac
 
Re: Prinergy Naming?

Mac, where is this file being renamed? I used the same filename here on our system here with no problems. In fact, we don't worry about character limits anymore.

Check the process history in the process viewer. That should show you where the file is being renamed. It sounds as if you might be using tertiary servers that are truncating long filenames or the Win2k share isn't configured properly.
 
Re: Prinergy Naming?

I suspect that this is a situation where you're moving from a Mac to a PC at some point in your workflow. Somewhere along the line you're getting the old DOS 8.3 naming rule coming in and the OS is trying to compensate. It might help to know what version of Mac OS and Windows OS you're using on your machines.
 
Re: Prinergy Naming?

Thanks guys... I'll look into that.
FWIW, Desktop Mac 10.4. Fileserver X-serve 10.4, EVO Server is Win2k3 (prinergy 4.0.65).
Thanks!

- Mac
 
Re: Prinergy Naming?

Try connecting to your server using "smb://000.000.000.000" (where 0 is your IP)
 
Re: Prinergy Naming?

> {quote:title=overtwo wrote:}{quote}
> "smb://"

+Shudder...+

Seriously? If the file name is proper (no illegal characters, etc.), why does the network protocol affect the naming of the file (the resource fork is gone in OSX, it's not that?)

- Mac
 
Re: Prinergy Naming?

AFP (Appletalk) has a 31 character limitation, SMB does not. If needing to use AFP there are some software solutions out there that will compensate for this issue, such as ExtremeZ-IP, but it's expensive. Although Macs still support AFP it's a slower, less dependable networking protocol and should be avoided when possible.
 
Re: Prinergy Naming?

> {quote:title=PantherMac wrote:}{quote}
>
> Seriously? If the file name is proper (no illegal characters, etc.), why does the network protocol affect the naming of the file (the resource fork is gone in OSX, it's not that?)
>
> - Mac
Network protocol matters because afp only supports up to 31 characters in filenames. If you look at the file on your Windows box you will see the whole filename but viewing it from a Mac that has the share mounted with afp, the name will be truncated.

By default Evo has Page Splitting enabled in the Normalize section of your Process Template. This appends a ".p###" to the file name so you can tell which page is which when it comes time to imposing your pages. The other time Evo changes the filename is when you ask for the resulting file to go into the same directory as the original. In this case a ".new" is appended. If you turn off page splitting and set the file delivery options so the Refined file goes into a different folder than the original, the file name should not change.

If you have further questions, please call your local Response Center and they will be happy to get things sorted out for you.


Cheers,
Rob Morgan
Kodak
 
Re: Prinergy Naming?

Hi Folks,

Thanks for considering ExtremeZ-IP as a solution.

I believe that the culprit here is SFM which, as Rob states, is limited to 31 character file names. SFM (Microsoft Services for Macintosh) uses the older AFP 2.2 protocol that does not support any OS X functionality such as long filenames. Group Logic believes that Microsoft has no plans to update the AFP protocol supported as SFM has been deprecated from Server 2008.

The good news is that, starting with the AFP 3.0 protocol that shipped with OS X, AFP has supported long file names (up to 255 characters) and Unicode filenames as does ExtremeZ-IP. The other good news is that that AFP runs on TCP/IP so you can eliminate AppleTalk forever.

You can read about file name limitations on various systems in our knowledgebase article here: [http://www.grouplogic.com/knowledge/index.cfm?fuseaction=view&docID=111|http://www.grouplogic.com/knowledge/index.cfm?fuseaction=view&docID=111]. You can download a Kodak Tech Bulletin on how to configure Prinergy and ExtremeZ-IP in another article here: [http://www.grouplogic.com/knowledge/index.cfm/fuseaction/view_Info/docID/271|http://www.grouplogic.com/knowledge/index.cfm/fuseaction/view_Info/docID/271]

Cheers,


Reid

T. Reid Lewis
Group Logic, Inc.
1100 N. Glebe Rd, Suite 800, Arlington, VA 22201 USA
Tel: +1.703.528.1555 Fax: +1.703.528.3296
[www.grouplogic.com|http://www.grouplogic.com]

Creators and publishers of:
ExtremeZ-IP File & Print Server: Macintosh server for Windows 2003/XP/2000/NT (and soon, 2008!)
MassTransit: automated file transfer solution for Windows & Macintosh
Installation, integration and professional services for our products
 
Re: Prinergy Naming?

Once I refine my files, the sub page only has ".pX" where X is the number.

for example:

123456_A4_Flyer.*p1*.pdf
123456_A4_Flyer.*p2*.pdf etc

I have never seen a sub page with ".p0001"

BUT

After looking through my process plans i cannot for the life of me, find an option to change the naming convention.

Not sure if the extra 3 characters will be groundbreaking but it may help.
 
Re: Prinergy Naming?

Yeah, would be nice if we had a button to fiddle w/ to affect that, wouldn't it?

I'm still seriously disappointed w/ the Prinergy naming. I constantly get truncated names on files, and using job numbers for the beginning, while incredibly helpful to me, is apparently too much for 4.0. I've switched to using SMB to connect to the server, and it still takes useful file names and turns them into DOS-like useless crap.

"078027_MonroMrTire25x40.pjtf" becomes "078027_Monr.1A.PDF".

Would be useful, except there's multiple jobs/items/sigs w/ this form, and our naming convention is Job number_Customer name_Job/Item name (e.g. ######_CustomerNameItemNameSheetSize.ext). So instead of being able to see what the item is after the customer name, I get multiple PDF's called _1A.PDF and _1A.1.PDF _1B.1.PDF, ad nauseam. Don't even get me started on how freaking useless the names are on the TIFF Downloader (PrintConsole never was much more than a queue program, but christ, who was the dumbass that thought "Job ID:151 Sep.1" was relevant to the monkey sticking metal into the box?) Why file names can't stick/be honored from Mac to PC land is beyond me, it's a problem these engineers have been claiming they've conqured for the entire 15 years I've been doing this crap.

Using our existing format for naming files is too great, we're having to break work up by assigning unique job numbers, just to keep things separated. PIA..... Should have bought a Mac RIP! If only there was one! ROTFL!

I('ve) work(ed) on a couple *nix systems, and they all seem to work w/ long Mac filenames just ducky (since OS X even better). For some reason, Windows and Mac, still don't play nice, after all these years. You'd think they'd develop for a different platform... But I've talked to a few developers back in the Araxi days, and it was a contentious issue back when Scitex got folded in (AIX was a tank... +REALLY+ wish they had won that argument).

Shrug, we continue to fight, they make profit on incremental release versions.

- Mac
 
The Resource Fork Lives, Its Merely Renamed & Now Has Siblings

The Resource Fork Lives, Its Merely Renamed & Now Has Siblings

Hi,

In an earlier comment, PantherMac wrote:

> the resource fork is gone in OSX

Mac OS X files continue to have multiple parts and cross platform workflows must allow for them as they are stored as file forks on Mac OS X, as NTFS streams on NTFS or as "._" (dot-underscore) files by the Mac OS X SMB client.

Starting with 10.4 Tiger, Mac OS X supports any number of forks, now called Extended Attributes. You can read about Extended Attributes here: Extended file attributes - Wikipedia and you can read how ExtremeZ-IP maps Mac OS X files to Windows NTFS here: When I save a file using SMB protocol, what information is saved in the ?dot-underscore? (._) files? How is this information stored on an NTFS file system?

Cheers,


Reid

T. Reid Lewis
Group Logic, Inc.
1100 N. Glebe Rd, Suite 800, Arlington, VA 22201 USA
Tel: +1.703.528.1555 Fax: +1.703.528.3296
Group Logic. Move Digitally. Share Globally.

Creators and publishers of:
ExtremeZ-IP File & Print Server: Macintosh server for Windows 2003/XP/2000/NT (and soon, 2008!)
MassTransit: automated file transfer solution for Windows & Macintosh
Installation, integration and professional services for our products
 
ExtremeZ-IP is a nice server based solution to the problem of files names getting truncated and resource forks getting split, but there is a client side solution.

Thursby Software makes an SMB/CIFS client called "DAVE". It communicates with the standard Windows SMB/CIFS server. It supports long filenames as you would expect. But when applications read/write resource forks thru a DAVE mounted file system they get stored the same way Services For Macintosh stored the data under thru AppleShare.

Thus you can keep your exact same server configuration but get all the advantages of long filenames and intact resource forks.

I don't work for Thursby. Just a happy customer.
 

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