Re: On Demand Printing

[Kelly Burhenne <burhennk -at- SMTPGW -dot- LIEBERT -dot- COM>]

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     >I read your post about your company's docutech system.  My company is
     >too small to lease such an animal. So, I'm talking to a local service
     >bureau to whom I can send a disk and receive printed manuals in
     >return.  The benefit to me would be not to have to handle hardcopy
     >masters, store pasted-up originals, etc.
     >Is this a legitimate benefit in
     >your eyes?

     Sherri,

     We, too, gave softcopy files to our print vendor who owned a DocuTech
     before we leased our own.  Personally, I found there were very few
     advantages to giving softcopy rather than hardcopy.  The way we did
     it: we had to convert our files to a PostScript file (.pdl) before
     giving them to the printer (so the DocuTech could read it).  Which is
     fine, except that .pdl files expand to approximatly three times the
     size of the original file.  Therefore, if your document is long,
     you're talking about *a lot* of floppies to get it to the printer.  We
     looked into sending our files via modem, but the printer didn't have
     one (I don't know if this would have worked anyway).
     Therefore, several times I had to break up a chapter because it
     wouldn't fit on one floppy (a MAJOR pain--headers, etc.).  Also,
     occassionally, the files would become corrupted (wierd page breaks,
     etc.) because of the conversion (I'm assuming).

     Additionally, I found that the quality wasn't noticeably better with
     softcopy.  When giving hardcopy to a DocuTech, it will scan the
     original (therefore "creating" a softcopy) and make prints from this
     softcopy.  It is *a lot* better quality than a regular copier.

     Now that we have leased our own DocuTech, we can send softcopy files
     electronically through the Network, but I still feel I have more
     control using hardcopy (call me paranoid!)

     I hope this helps and I will be glad to answer any more questions you
     may have.

     -Kelly Burhenne
      burhennk -at- smtpgw -dot- liebert -dot- com
      Columbus, OH