The importance of genuine PostScript

I was reminded today once again of the importance of having printers equipped with genuine Adobe™ PostScript™ in complex design and publishing workflows.

I was at a client site helping them troubleshoot odd, intermittent printing problems. They were printing early proofs of complex magazine layouts on an HP LaserJet 4000 printer. This printer, like many HP laser printers contains a non-Adobe PostScript "emulation". This works fine most of the time, but...

After considerable time spent trying get to the root of the problem, we finally were able to determine with confidence that the problem was the printer. I advised the client that it would be less expensive to purchase a new printer (witgenuinene Adobe PostScript than to try find a solution or develop a workaround, especially since they were able to redeploy the printer elsewhere in the company.

Black and white laser printers that contain genuine Adobe PostScript can be a little hard to find. I really like the line of Xerox black and white laser printers. I have a Xerox 4400, which has printed 169,656 pages to date faithfully with absolutely no maintenance.

The bottom line: printers with PostScript emulation will often work fine for "office" documents and simple layouts. But for graphically rich pages created with professional design and publishing software such as Adobe InDesign and Illustrator or QuarkXPress, containing a wide variety of fonts, vector artwork and transparency effects, genuine Adobe PostScript is a must-have.