Digital Copier RIPs not supporting OSX Lion??

[TwitchOSX]

Just got a new Mac Pro so we can upgrade to the newest versions of the Adobe Creative Suite. Just to find out yesterday that the Creo rip on our color copier doesn't support Lion. I guess they don't have drivers. Great. What am I supposed to do now? Keep the G5 in my office until they come out with drivers for Lion? I got our high speed black and white machine working. I'm afraid that our platemaker for our presses wont support Lion either but I haven't gotten that far. Anybody else having these issues? The machine is an Ikon(Richoh) CPP 500.

 

[airyk]

Something I stumbled upon which could help you:


If you have a machine with 10.6 on it, perform all the updates to bring it to 10.6.8 if you have not already done so. Download Server Admin Tools 10.6.8 Server Admin Tools 10.6.8 which includes System Image Utility (SIU). You'll use SIU to create a NetRestore Image.

A walk through of the process is listed in the http://manuals.info.apple.com/en_US/SystemImage_v10.6.pdf System Imaging & Software Update Administration guide on page 29-31. Once an image is created, you can use the NetBoot service in Mac OS X Server to deploy to the image over a network. Another option is to use Disk Utility in your Utilities Folder to distribute the NetRestore image over firewire to each iMac. The target iMac would be started in Target Disk mode (hold down the "T" key as the boot).

 

[TwitchOSX]

What does all that have to do with 10.7 not working with Creo rips?

The only other Mac I have is running 10.5.8 I think. If 10.7 doesnt work with current rips, I might need to go out and buy 10.6 and install it on our Mac Pro and upgrade to 10.7 once the drivers are out there. I didn't ask wether 10.6 works with our rips or not.

 

[airyk]

you asked "what am I suppose to do now". I gave you an option, was just trying to help.

 

[TwitchOSX]

Right... but I'm not following exactly what all that is trying to accomplish.

 

[curveto]

Just got a new Mac Pro so we can upgrade to the newest versions of the Adobe Creative Suite. Just to find out yesterday that the Creo rip on our color copier doesn't support Lion. I guess they don't have drivers. Great. What am I supposed to do now? Keep the G5 in my office until they come out with drivers for Lion? I got our high speed black and white machine working. I'm afraid that our platemaker for our presses wont support Lion either but I haven't gotten that far. Anybody else having these issues? The machine is an Ikon(Richoh) CPP 500.

Can't you just use the PPD you have to create a new printer instance? Nothing has changed wrt that (and, unlike Windows, there is no "discrete binary driver" involved most of the time). Lion killed Rosetta so no more love for PPC-only applications. While that's bad it's only bad for really old stuff.

Lion *is* (however) a fairly strong step toward what amounts to doomsday (the day Apple kills Carbon). The world you know and rely upon will hurt (bad) on that day...

 

[TwitchOSX]

Not according to our service tech from Ikon.

 

[curveto]

What does all that have to do with 10.7 not working with Creo rips?

The only other Mac I have is running 10.5.8 I think. If 10.7 doesnt work with current rips, I might need to go out and buy 10.6 and install it on our Mac Pro and upgrade to 10.7 once the drivers are out there. I didn't ask wether 10.6 works with our rips or not.

Apple doesn't sell anything except Lion today and, then, it's ONLY available via two methods:

1) The (new) Mac App store;
2) On a USB key via mail order (from Apple.com).

I'm not 100% certain but I don't believe you can use the older OS versions (pre-Lion) on any brand new Apple hardware (anyway).

 

[TwitchOSX]

Thats not good.

 

[Bo3b]

Creo have only recently started making more complete drivers for Macs - in the past they only ever had the PPD.
I can't see any reason why you just can't use the ppd when you create a driver.
The PPD may have some internal references to PDE's (print dialog extensions) so you may have to edit the PPD to remove these references. You won't have a pretty driver but it should have all the bits in it to set the correct settings for the rip - assuming that Creo have all the bits in the PPD, which they should if they follow Adobe's rules for PPD creation

 

[TwitchOSX]

The thing is... All I need to be able to do is send the job to the rip like before. I don't need all the crap in the PPD itself. I don't configure the print job from the print driver. I send it to to the rip and configure the job there. I don't know why I cant do that... the problem I was having was actually getting that part going but the tech said that the rip wasn't compatible with Lion. It's odd.

 

[curveto]

The thing is... All I need to be able to do is send the job to the rip like before. I don't need all the crap in the PPD itself. I don't configure the print job from the print driver. I send it to to the rip and configure the job there. I don't know why I cant do that... the problem I was having was actually getting that part going but the tech said that the rip wasn't compatible with Lion. It's odd.

You should be able to make a generic "PostScript" printer instance. It will help if you have the PPD ready for selection (when doing so) but for the near term you can just treat it as if it's completely generic. OS X will use the PPD to determine resident fonts, paper tray handling (this is the biggie), device resolution and color support, etc. If those attributes aren't accurate you may get PostScript at the RIP that is slow or cumbersome but it'll probably still work.

There won't be any change in some magic new driver to the PPD you already have so just search your G5 box for that PPD.

 

[Hopkins Printing]

Hi Twitch,

Some questions for you:

1. I take it from your post that you were printing your files from your old Mac to the Creo Rip?
2. That being the case, is the Creo Rip a part of the CPP 500 or is there a separate computer attached to the 500 that contains the Creo Rip?
3. If there is a separate computer, does the Creo Rip support hot folders?

If so, perhaps you could make a PDF from your Creative Suite files and drag them onto a hot folder?

I am not sure if this helps any, but I thought I would ask as I am not familiar with your output device or the Creo Rip.

Best regards,
Jon

 

[TwitchOSX]

Yea.. the Creo rip is a separate PC hooked up to the machine. And what you suggested is the same thing that a tech from Ikon told me I would have to do. I have to PDF the files from InDesign and send them to a shared folder on the Creo rip. Then via Remote Desktop Connection on the Mac, I can control the PC and import the file into the rip software.

This will work although it will slow things down a little.

My only problem right now is... sometimes I need to send things to the rip in Greyscale or RGB mode from InDesign. The reason is... if I have a color image that I'm going to print in Greyscale on the RIP (because greyscale clicks cost less) then I have to send it to the rip in greyscale from InDesign. This greyscales the image before it hits the rip. If I send it in color to the rip and then tell the rip to print it in greyscale, the color images turn out WAY too dark. This is going to be a problem unless I can figure out how to create a PDF in greyscale to start with. I'm not sure how to do that or if it's even possible.

Same thing with RGB. Sometimes when we scan an image on the color machine, and then do some modifications to it in the computer and then print it back out, we send it to the rip in RGB mode because the machine scans in RGB. Even though the printer is CMYK, sending it to the rip in RGB mode preserves the color better. If I send an RGB image to the rip in CMYK mode, and there is a lot of blue in the image, then when it converts in the rip to CMYK, it adds a lot of red to the image which is unacceptable. This is another problem. If I were able to create PDFs from InDesign in either greyscale color or RGB mode instead of CMYK, that would fix the issue but I'm not sure thats possible.

 

[TwitchOSX]

Well... looking around the interweb, it appears that I can save PDF files converted to RGB using the Destination menu under Output in the InDesign PDF window.

As for greyscale, that's a little more complicated. Apparently I have to open the PDF in Acrobat Pro and go into the Preflight area and convert to Grayscale there. That saves a copy of the PDF that is in grayscale mode. Pain in the ass workarounds for Ikon being lazy and not making OSX drivers. Apparently there are Windows 7 drivers... no problem but none at all for OSX Lion. How weak.

 

[Hopkins Printing]

Hi Twitch,

Despite what the tech told you, here is a possibility that MIGHT work:

Since you already have the printer driver you need installed on your older Mac, just copy it from /Library/Printers/PPDs to a removable device like a Flash drive. Connect that to your Lion Mac, then launch System Preferences and choose Print & Scan. Now add the printer as you normally would.

When Lion can’t find the right driver, choose Other from the Print Using popup menu and select the driver that’s on your removable drive.

Best regards,
Jon

 

[TwitchOSX]

I've already got the driver. It's on a shared folder on the rip. But when I try to add the printer I'm doing something wrong in there I think. When I tried to print to it, it went to our other high speed black and white machine. I think we might have printed to this printer over Appletalk before.. not sure. Of course.. that's not supported in Lion anymore.

Actually.. that's not good as our digital plate setter uses Appletalk.

 

[Marko]

With the new Creo Spire we got-it has the ability and a small app that creates JDF tickets to be used with PDF's. It's basically all the dialogs on the rip itself (everything from color management to finishing).

I'm not at work to look but I think its called something like JT Ticket. Look in your Mac share on the rip. It with hotfolders should be all you need.

 

[TwitchOSX]

I'm really not familiar at all with JDF stuff. Ive heard it being talked about for a while now but never needed it so I never looked into it.

And when people call things "hot folders"... are those just shared folders over the network?

 

[curveto]

I'm really not familiar at all with JDF stuff. Ive heard it being talked about for a while now but never needed it so I never looked into it.

And when people call things "hot folders"... are those just shared folders over the network?

A "hot folder" is basically any folder that has an application watching it and, in turn, is expecting to use it as an input / queue. Technically, the folder may be shared on a network or not. If you're familiar with Acrobat Distiller and it's "Watched Folder" functionality you (already) know what a hot folder is.

It sounds like your trouble stems from the loss of AppleTalk support in Lion. The Creo probably supports AppSocket over TCP/IP.

There are a handful of (print-centric) connection types:

LPR (the Creo probably supports this ... it's a tad harder to configure than AppSocket but more secure / flexible when configured correctly)
AppSocket / HP (the Creo probably supports this)
IPP (the Creo may support this ... it *is* printing over HTTP rather like a web browser might do ... although that's an oversimplification)
AppleTalk (dead technology)
Bonjour (I double the Creo supports this ... newer / home-centric things do)

If it does support AppSocket go determine what the Creo's IP address is (YMMV wrt how to accomplish that) and repeat that PPD generic PostScript print install process (described above). When prompted for which method of network connection you want to use choose AppSocket (possibly labeled HP Printing ... I cannot recall and don't have a Mac handy at the moment). The UI that is presented related to AppSocket transmission will ask you for a destination IP address (for the Creo). Input that IP address you wrote down from the Creo. Associate the Creo's PPD (again, as previously described) and you should be up and running. If your Ikon tech can't figure this out I suggest you find another tech since it's not a particularly challenging task (it takes all of 2 minutes, a little bit of data / information and skills that EVERY print tech should understand regardless of their "favorite" platform).

You'll get there. Keep us informed. Nothing in Lion should have permanently blocked you from using your Creo the way you have always used your Creo (RIP).

JR