Plotting Problem!

[Alan Kidner]

We have recently changed from NetWare to Windows Server
2003. We are printing successfully from our PCs to our
HP DesignJet 600 plotter. This device does not support
PostScript so we have been using MacPlot Raster Mono and
the AppleTalk Printer Tool (both legacy products from
Microspot) to spool Macintosh jobs to the network queue.
With Window Server we can still place Mac jobs in to the
queue but when they print all that we get is the
following error message:

SYSTEM
%%[Error: undefined; OffendingCommand: E]%%
%%[Flushing: rest of job (to end-of-file) will be
ignored]%%

Under NetWare we were able to configure the AppleTalk
spooler as an ImageWriter II (i.e. a Non-Postscript
printer). However, I believe that the queue Windows
Server advertises in the Chooser is a LaserWriter queue
(i.e. a PostScript printer). Does this make sense and is
there a way round the problem? Microspot have suggested
to me that Windows Server is processing a job that needs
no processing and it would print if it were copied to
LPT1. I am not sure that this would work even if it were
practical to do this in a network environment (the
plotter has a JetDirect card).

Any help or suggestions would be most welcome. Best
regards, Alan

 

[William M. Smith]

We have recently changed from NetWare to Windows Server
2003. We are printing successfully from our PCs to our
HP DesignJet 600 plotter. This device does not support
PostScript so we have been using MacPlot Raster Mono and
the AppleTalk Printer Tool (both legacy products from
Microspot) to spool Macintosh jobs to the network queue.
With Window Server we can still place Mac jobs in to the
queue but when they print all that we get is the
following error message:

SYSTEM
%%[Error: undefined; OffendingCommand: E]%%
%%[Flushing: rest of job (to end-of-file) will be
ignored]%%

Under NetWare we were able to configure the AppleTalk
spooler as an ImageWriter II (i.e. a Non-Postscript
printer). However, I believe that the queue Windows
Server advertises in the Chooser is a LaserWriter queue
(i.e. a PostScript printer). Does this make sense and is
there a way round the problem? Microspot have suggested
to me that Windows Server is processing a job that needs
no processing and it would print if it were copied to
LPT1. I am not sure that this would work even if it were
practical to do this in a network environment (the
plotter has a JetDirect card).

Hi Alan!

The Macs are sending Postscript to a non-Postscript device, as you've
surmised, and this information is incompatible with with Windows' connection
to the plotter. A plotter is just a dumb device that's taking all of its
information directly from Windows and not processing anything itself.

With this in mind, you might try Ghostscript and redirection software called
RedMon (redirection monitor) http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/redmon/index.htm.
With this combination I was able to get a Mac OS X station to spool to
Windows 2000 and 2003 server queues that were printing to a Canon BubbleJet
printer and an OKI Data 5100 Windows printer. Neither of these printer
devices understood PCL or Postscript.

Here are the excellent instructions that I used
http://iharder.sourceforge.net/macosx/winmacprinter/

In a nutshell, you'll create three queues on your Windows machine. The first
queue receives the print information from your Mac across the network. It
spools to the second queue, which is being watched by Ghostscript.
Ghostscript converts the Postscript to raster information and then spools it
to the third queue. The third queue sends to the printer.

The only issue I can see as a problem with this setup is the PPD file.
You'll probably need to use a PPD that accommodates for the larger paper
sizes.

Hope this helps! bill

 

[Alan Kidner]

Hi William,

MANY THANKS for your response, at first I thought your
comments looked promising but I realise that in this case
the Mac is not sending PostScript. MacPlot Raster Mono
outputs an image of the page, as rasterized data that is
ready to go straight to the plotter. The AppleTalk
Printer Tool lets us send this data by allowing us to
select an AppleTalk printer or AppleTalk advertised
network print queue in the Macintosh Chooser (I should
have mentioned before that we are using Mac OS 9.2.1).

Referring back to my original comments about ImageWriter
and LaserWriter, I think I have a problem because Windows
Server assumes the job is PostScript when it is not OR
because Windows Server is advertising (on AppleTalk / in
the Chooser) a PostScript queue for a non-PostScript
printer.

Any more ideas?

Best regards, Alan.

 

[William M. Smith]

Hi William,

MANY THANKS for your response, at first I thought your
comments looked promising but I realise that in this case
the Mac is not sending PostScript. MacPlot Raster Mono
outputs an image of the page, as rasterized data that is
ready to go straight to the plotter. The AppleTalk
Printer Tool lets us send this data by allowing us to
select an AppleTalk printer or AppleTalk advertised
network print queue in the Macintosh Chooser (I should
have mentioned before that we are using Mac OS 9.2.1).

Referring back to my original comments about ImageWriter
and LaserWriter, I think I have a problem because Windows
Server assumes the job is PostScript when it is not OR
because Windows Server is advertising (on AppleTalk / in
the Chooser) a PostScript queue for a non-PostScript
printer.

Hi Alan!

Dang! Thought that would help you.

You're referring to "The Appletalk Printer Tool". Is this something that
came with your plotter software? If you're going through the LaserWriter
driver at all in the Chooser, then you're definitely sending Postscript (or
at least your information is encapsulated in Postscript).

Do you have the ability to print to a file and then put that into a shared
Windows print queue mounted as a Mac volume? We had a similar situation that
required us to do this, but it was pretty well documented.

Also, you may want to double-check your Windows print queue and make sure
that it's spooling data as RAW.

Hope this helps! bill

 

[Alan Kidner]

Hello again William,

I have been thinking about this problem and I might have
a solution based upon your first suggestion. I will try
and download a Mac driver for a similar plotter but one
that supports PostScript (ie. The DesignJet 650), then I
will do away with MacPlot and the Printer Tool, spool the
PostScript job straight to the network queue and try
using RedMon and Ghostscript as you describe. Currently,
I can't get the drivers to download from the HP web site,
but I will keep you posted.

Thanks again and best regards, Alan.

 

[William M. Smith]

Hello again William,

I have been thinking about this problem and I might have
a solution based upon your first suggestion. I will try
and download a Mac driver for a similar plotter but one
that supports PostScript (ie. The DesignJet 650), then I
will do away with MacPlot and the Printer Tool, spool the
PostScript job straight to the network queue and try
using RedMon and Ghostscript as you describe. Currently,
I can't get the drivers to download from the HP web site,
but I will keep you posted.

Hi Alan!

Believe it or not, I now have a similar task at work with networking a
plotter. Please do keep me posted of your progress and I'll let you know
about mine.

Thanx! bill