Re: Docutech

[Mike Christie <mikec -at- LUNA -dot- SYNTEL -dot- COM>]

Kelly Burheme said

>We, too, gave softcopy files to our print vendor who owned a
>DocuTech before we leased our own. <snip>
>.pdl files expand to approximatly three times the size of the original file.
As someone else suggested, you can use PKZIP. Postsrcipt files shrink to
as small as 15-20% of their original size

>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).
As long as you zip the files, this works great. I've done it a lot. Of
course the printer has to have a modem. ;-)

>Also, occassionally, the
>files would become corrupted (wierd page breaks, etc.) because of the
>conversion (I'm assuming).
Shouldn't happen, as long as you use the same printer driver. In a Windows
application (Ventura in my case) you can print the document to a postscript
file, just like you print it to a printer. Then use the DOS copy command
to copy the file to your postscript printer. The result should be
identical to what you get from Docutech (excpet for the much higher
resolution provided by DocuTech of course.) I discovered this is good QC
for me, since it ensures that what I'm sending to the printer is infact
what I want them to be getting.

>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.
How well do graphics scan? I wasn't aware of DocuTech's scanning
capabilities (perhaps my printer doesn't have that bit).

>but I still feel I have more control using hardcopy (call me paranoid!)
In-house, perhaps, if you have a reliable operator. But with postscript
files, it's a lot harder for your printer to cuase problems like missing
pages, pages out of order, etc. If it's in the file, it gets printed.
(Well, one would hope.....)

For our very long manuals with very short runs, DocuTech is far and away
the most practical way to go. (Plus, the postscript diskettes that are
returned by the printer go straight to CM, which maked the CM manager happy!)

Mike Christie
Technical Writer
Syntelligence Systems, Inc.
mikec -at- syntel -dot- com