[Scribus] prepress RIP

[Atlantic Tech Solutions]

On Fri, 2004-05-14 at 08:09, bart at solozone.com wrote:
> I inquire as to the use of pre press RIP in Scribus.
>  I think this may have been discussed before but my colleagues 
> in wondows are discovering that Quark needs RIP for good results
>  in Windows and they are all dizzy with Harlequin pre-flight and such. 
> I do not myself use high end printers or wide format or image setters 
> but others do and I would like to advise soundly.
> TO print in Scribus is there significant difference between its
>  printing or export to pdf or RIP? IS RIP used in Linux at all?


Technically, Ghostscript is a RIP (Raster Image Processor). It takes
Postscript and converts it into a image stream.

RIPs in the more familiar usage are expensive, special purpose
workstations which do this conversion with well known RIPs as
Creo, Harlequin and Adobe Extreme for example.

How Scribus files sent direct to the RIP will output depends on some
variables:

1) Foremost, older RIPs will typically not support PS3 and or PDF 1.4,
which is the default output for Scribus and Scribus easily can create
advanced PS3 objects, which older RIPs will choke on. This was the # 1
complaint about Indesign.. Printers complained Indesign generated poor
PS. The problem was solved once printers had updated their RIPS.

2. Font quality. Call me a font snob, but there are only a handful of
freely avaialbe fonts which I trust to output reliably. Note, some RIPs
may have difficulty with some Unicode True Type fonts.

3. It really helps to have the correct PPD file installed into CUPS and
have CUPS support in Scribus. Most RIPs offer a Windows PPD, which will
drop into to CUPS or kprinter and just work. However, there is a
cupstestppd script which finds minor issues in PPD files and gives hints
to fix them.

That said with the above conditions met:

I have consistently been able to run both PS3 and PDF 1.4 files through
my client's EFI Fiery RIP with an up to date Adobe Extreme engine
without problems. I have been testing a number of Scribus files on a
week to week basis. The only issue I have encountered was some issue
with duplexing, but I found a good work around.

You can direct your colleagues to : 
http://ahnews.music.salford.ac.uk/scribus/documentation/pre-press.html#ss4.9

For notes on handling Scribus in a pre-press environment.


We have not had any complaints from users or printers not being able to
output files. If there is an issue, I would dearly like to know and even
see the files myself.

Hope that helps,
Peter