Stone Design Forums

PStill is a vital part of our workflow. We are digital printers with a Xeikon D50 Digital Press, the problem is that the press has a Level 2 RIP. It is just too expensive to upgrade the RIP at the moment. Enter PStill. We have Level 3 RIPS for our Large Format Printers, but I have noticed that, even these RIPs fail to rip every job. After testing why jobs fail at the RIP (Level 2 or 3), we noticed it is mainly down to fonts. OpenType fonts are the worst but dFonts can be just as bad.
The first step in our workflow is to impose the job - we use Creo Preps 5 on OSX, once the job is imposed it can be saved as PS or PDF. The file is then automatically sent to Adobe Distiller (if it has been saved as PS) and converted to PDF, from there it is sent to PStill where all fonts are outlined and RGB and Spot Colours are converted to CMYK - automatic preview is switched on in Preferences so the job opens up in Acrobat where the imposed job is checked for colour and outlined fonts, then saved again as a Postscript. This workflow has has saved us a great deal of money, and has allowed us to take in any job from any client. We have tested this with Chinese Charecters which failed at Level 2 or 3 RIPs and it works every time. It may sound long winded but we have it set up to run automaticly. PStill is a God Send, I have no idea why it is so cheap I would have payed alot more for the functionality it provides. If any one wants instructions of how to setup the workflow I have a PDF file with full instructions. We are not the only printers out there that have experienced problems when Ripping certain fonts, but this workflow works, and is cheap. Any comments would be very usefull.
Andy