Preps Setup Help

[PantherMac]

Hi there,

Still battling w/ Setting up Prep's properly.
I'm learning the application well, but my layouts all image in the lower-left corner of the 'plate' on my Brisque.
I'm convinced I've got some setting buggered up on the device - all dimensions I can measure on the RIP, from edge-to-art, are exactly equal to what my sheet dimensions should be.... So for some reason, my output files are not being placed onto 'plate size' PS files (bounding box in the PS file confirms this).
ANY help would be appreciated, as I've already spent hours toggling this and that button and banging the file off the RIP.
Thanks.

- Mac

[DCurry]

I am at home right now and can't check my exact setup, but we made a custom media size in Preps (actually, 2 of them for our 2 plate sizes). Then when it is time to print from Preps, I simply choose the correct Device - 1 device setup for large plates, the other for our smaller plates.

This is the equivalent of choosing a larger media size when printing from a layout app.

Hope this helps - sorry I can't be more specific right now. I can post all my settings on Monday if you think it will help.

[PantherMac]

Originally Posted by DCurry

Hope this helps - sorry I can't be more specific right now. I can post all my settings on Monday if you think it will help.

Hi Dan,

That'd be great if you could!
I loaded my PPD... thing saw the page size, the preview on screen 'looked' right, I've assumed this was going to be a no-brainer... Hacked away at it again the other day (had a job that needed it), and I got plates out, but it was ugly (using offsets to center the art on plate).
I _know_ there's something simple I'm missing, but I'll be damned if I can find it. It shouldn't be any harder than setting up any other PS printer, should it?!??!
Sorry, very frustrated...
Thanks.

- Mac

[local1]

Take a look at the device configuration in preps. Sounds like the punch location would help you in shifting everything to the centered position your looking for. We use this to control center from left to right and to adjust for distance from lead edge. Once the device has these offsets it is like Dcurry says, choose the device and go.

Good Luck

[DCurry]

OK, here's a couple screenshots from the Device Setup>Device Configuration. I don't actually punch the plates inline, so that info is from back when we used to make film and it was punched by our Dolev, and there was a time when we had both film and CTP and I wanted to be able to image either one without changing anything, so I just kept it as is. I was not involved with the original setup years ago, so I'm not sure how these punch numbers were arrived at. The Custom Size is close to our actual plates size, though not quite exact for some reason. Again, not my doing!

Hope this helps!

[PantherMac]

Thanks Guys. From the RIP, that looks like it has fixed things for me! Dunno why I couldn't 'get' that before, but I'll let you know how the first job goes (all freaking re-prints this week)!

- Mac

[PantherMac]

2 jobs to press. So far, so good..

Thanks again for the help!

- Mac

[DCurry]

Great job - glad to hear it's going well so far.