Printing solid images to a DocuColor

[JoshB]

I believe I understand what you're after: you want a file that has already been rasterized in the same format the printer consumes so when sending the file it goes straight through the RIP (as if it's been processed already since it's the native format). I don't believe this is something that's possible unless you are able to get information from Xerox about what file the printer itself (not the RIP) consumes. It seems to me what you're doing is trying to build a third party RIP - similar to sending a 1 bit black/white image to a Harlequin or similar RIP.

The reason why I don't think this is possible is Xerox will never release their print engine technology to someone like yourself. You would basically be competing with their RIP manufacturers (EFI, CREO, etc). since you would essentially be ripping the file prior to sending it to the printer. I'm no expert but it seems that there would be a number of issues with sending the raw data such as screen angles, color management etc.

That's a good summary of what I want to do and of the challenges involved. But that's all they are, challenges. The only hard barrier is Xerox's policy.

There's not much point arguing over it here, but I'd contend that opening up all the information needed to build a RIP for the machine is exactly what Xerox should be doing. It's a stupid thing to keep secret; they artificially cripple the capabilities of their machines, and for what? -- some licensing fees bled out of EFI? If they could demonstrate multiple times the productivity of competing hardware for truly, truly variable printing, that should be much more valuable than whatever they can eek out of RIP manufacturers.