[scribus] Slower printing with grays

[Rolf-Werner Eilert]

Am 29.10.2013 15:59, schrieb john Culleton:
> On Tue, 29 Oct 2013 11:43:30 +0100
> Rolf-Werner Eilert <eilert-sprachen at t-online.de> wrote:
>
>> Currently I'm working on a little brochure in b/w made for
>> being printed on our copier.
>>
>> When I have gray elements (gray letters or gray polygons) on
>> the pages, they will print much slower than pages with only
>> 100 % black elements. The difference is big: instead of
>> "instant" print, it will take 4 - 8 seconds for the RIP to
>> make up the page. I know, printing pictures is slower, too.
>> But here there are only homogeneous gray areas.
>>
>> My first thought was, I had cloned some gray colours out of
>> the CMYK black one (with the K slider to 50, 60, 70 %). Making
>> RGB colours out of them didn't help, however.
>>
>> Is there any way to speed up printing such pages?
>>
>> Rolf
>>
>>
> Have you tried saving the file as pdf and then printing that
> file from e.g., Acrobat Reader or (for Linux) Okular?
>
>

Yes, this is precisely what I do here: Making a PDF and printing it from 
Okular or KPDF or Reader + kprinter.

I've been printing a lot of documents made with Scribus to this copier 
in the last years, and I know a bit the results in advance. Once a 
month, I have to print A3 duplex containing some pictures, inline pdf, 
or gray areas, and that takes about 12 - 15 seconds for each double page 
to start printing.

But simple A4 has always printed (almost) at once, with some second or 
two delay when there are many pictures on the page. So this is new to 
me, and I will have to print this new document more than once. It would 
be nice if I could find out the reason and speed it up a bit, because it 
will have to print duplex and at least 10 copies of about 12 - 14 pages 
when it's ready.

Does the way the colors are defined have any influence on printing 
output to "Grayscale" printing? This was the only idea I've had what 
made be "wrong". If making e. g. a 60 % gray by defining it via the CMYK 
view (K slider), will the printer have to recalculate the CMYK 
definition to RGB or something like this?

Rolf