Corel Graphics Suite 12 Print Engine
The CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 12 print engine is highly advanced allowing users to specify everything from general output settings such as quantity and pages to be printed to separation settings and postscript options such as halftone frequency and angle. The print engine will always have six tabs but may show seven depending on whether or not the selected printer is using a PostScript driver. The following covers the available print options attached to each tab within the CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 12 print dialog box.
General
As it implies, the General tab allows users to set general print settings prior to printing a document. The Destination section displays information associated with the printer that will be outputting the document. The Name pull-down allows any installed output device to be selected. The Properties button allows driver-specific settings to be adjusted for the selected printer. These can include paper size, paper type, output quality, orientation and other things. Any changes made using the Properties button will apply only to the selected printer shown in the Name pull-down. Changing the selected printer may result in having to change the printer Properties again.
The Use PPD check-box will only be available when a PostScript printer has been selected. Enabling this option will force CorelDRAW to output the document using the PostScript Printer Description (PPD) for that device and, in effect, bypasses the Windows driver. PPD files contain capability information which is device-specific. When the Use PPD option is enabled, a window will open prompting the user to select the appropriate PPD for the device. While CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 12 does not prevent an incorrect PPD from being selected, it is important to select the appropriate one for the device as using an incorrect PPD may result in incorrect or no output.
The Print to file check-box when enabled, creates a PRN file of the document using the driver associated with the selected printer. This file can then be sent directly to a PostScript device for output and is sometimes useful when sending files to a service bureau to be printed. Using this option alleviates the need to provide fonts and other files to the service bureau, but still has drawbacks with the most obvious being that the file cannot be edited. As such, any flaws or mistakes which existed when the PRN file was created will be present in final output. The arrow to the right provides output settings which will be used with the PRN file is created. For Mac creates a file which can be output to a PostScript printer connected to a Macintosh computer. Single File creates one file (regardless of the number of pages in the document) containing all file information. Pages to Separate Files will create a file for each page contained in the document (file names will be assigned so that each page can be easily identified). Plates to Separate Files is to be used when printing color separations and will create a file for each color. Again, file names will identify which color a file is associated with. When the Print to file option is enabled, the printer will not print a hard-copy of the document.
The Print Range section of the General tab allows users to specify which document(s) will be printed and what portions of a document will be printed. With Current Document selected, the entire document that is currently active will be printed. Choosing Documents will provide the ability to select any documents which are presently open to be printed. Selected documents will be printed in their entirety. Current Page, as it implies will print only the page which is displayed in the active document and Selection prints only those objects which are selected within the active document. The Pages option will be available only if the active document contains more than one page and the pages to be printed can be identified simply by entering page numbers in the field. Placing a dash (-) between numbers will result in all pages in that range being printed (i.e. 3-6 will print pages 3, 4, 5 and 6). Placing a comma (,) between pages will print only those pages (i.e. 1,3,4 will print pages 1, 3 and 4). Any combination of dashes and commas can be used (i.e. 1-4,6,8,11-14 will print pages 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 9, 11, 12, 13 and 14). Also, all Even or Odd pages can be printed.
The Copies section allows the number of copies to be printed to be specified. When printing more than one copy, the Collate option becomes available. Enabling this feature keeps all same pages together (i.e. all copies of page 1 will print, followed by all copies of page 2, etc.)
The Print Styles pull-down allows for saved print styles to be selected and used when outputting. Print Styles consist of settings which have been made in the print dialog box and are saved as a PRS file. If a specific set of options will be frequently used, creating a print style can be time-saving. After making any desired changes to any of the print options (except those made in the print Properties), click the Save As button to the right of the Print Styles pull-down. Name the print style as desired and select the settings to be saved in the Setting to Include section. If unsure which settings must be saved to preserve the changes that have been made, selecting all options is likely best. When saved, the new style will appear in the Print Style pull-down.
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Layout
The Image position and size section of the Layout tab allows for the document position within the page to be set. Choosing As in document will result in the document being printed at the size and using the page-placement that was specified when it was designed. Choosing Fit to page will scale the entire document automatically so that it prints best fitted to the page size that the selected printer is configured to use. Reposition images to allows for the document to be positioned at the center, top center, left center, right center, bottom center, top left corner, top right corner, bottom left corner or the bottom right corner of the page. Also, custom placement can be defined if necessary.
The Print tiled pages check-box allows a document to be printed across multiple pages. This is especially useful when printing a large document which exceeds the maximum page size that can be handled by the printer. Tiling will result in sections of the document being printed across a specified number of pages to be assembled later.
When enabled, Print tiled pages will enable other options which pertain to how the tiles are printed. Object position can be set and document size can be specified in terms of overall size, scale factor (in percentage) or number of pages across/down. The tiling marks check-box controls whether or not marks for cropping will be printed on each tile. This may be useful for trimming printed tiles. Tile overlap can be set in inches or in terms of page width percentage. Using this setting will cause tiles to overlap when printed.
The Bleed limit check-box controls whether or not a bleed is applied to the document on output. This value is set in inches to a maximum value of 40.
The Imposition layout pull-down allows users to choose from a variety of preset layouts when outputting a document. If the desired layout is not listed, simply select that which closest matches the desired layout and click Edit to make changes to the layout.
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Separations
Color separations are necessary when documents will be output using a printing press. The reason for this is because a press applies only one color of ink to a sheet of paper at a time. To create a color separation, each color element must first be isolated at which point they are then used to create a sheet of film. Each film in turn is used to apply one color to the paper. Printing presses apply ink using process color or spot color. The number of colors used in a document will be the main factor in determining which method to use.
The Separations tab provides users with complete control of color separation settings as well as halftone and trapping options. Enabling the Print separations check-box will any applicable separations options. In the Options section, Print separations in color will be available only if a color printer is being used to output the separations. This feature is typically used only for proofing the separations as Imagesetters output to film and therefore are not capable of printing in color.
The Hexachrome plates check-box when enabled will result in up to 6 plates being printed: PANTONE Hexachrome Cyan, PANTONE Hexachrome Magenta, PANTONE Hexachrome Yellow, PANTONE Hexachrome Black, PANTONE Hexachrome Orange and PANTONE Hexachrome Green. The addition of orange and green provide for more vibrant color reproduction but will also add significant cost to the print job.
If the document contains spot colors, Convert spot colors to process will be available. This feature will result in the spot colors being output using Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black (CMYK). The Print empty plates option will result in plates being output even if they contain no information.
There are two main methods for creating color trappings: Always overprint black and Auto-spreading. CorelDRAW 12 also provides the ability to use In-Rip trapping and to Preserve document overprints.
In-Rip trapping allows advanced trapping options to be specified. A PostScript 3 printer which supports In-Rip trapping must be used in order to access and configure these settings. Trap width B the amount that one color spreads into another can be specified as can image trap placement, which determines where the trap occurs. Whether the trap is a choke or a spread can also be defined depending on the neutral densities of adjacent colors. Neutral density indicates the lightness or darkness of a color and helps determine how adjacent colors are spread into one another. Threshold can also be set by specifying a step trap limit. If trap colors are of similar neutral densities, the trap placement will be adjusted accordingly. The step trap limit specifies a threshold at which the trap will adjust. Before trapping, inks can also be set. For example, an ink which is metallic can be set to opaque so that nothing shows through it. Visibility of a trap can also be set by decreasing the amount of ink color in a trap. This can be especially helpful when using pastel colors, contrasting colors or colors with similar neutral densities.
The Preserve document overprints option is selected by default and enables any overprint options which have been directly applied to objects contained in the document. If this option is disabled, any trapping options which are set in the CorelDRAW print dialog box will override all fill and outline overprint options contained in the document's objects.
The Always overprint black option causes all objects with a color tint of at least 95 percent black to overprint underlying objects.
Enabling Auto-spreading will result in CorelDRAW automatically creating an overprinting outline using the same color of ink around objects which overlap objects of another color. When enabled, the maximum width of the spread can be set in points to a maximum of 10. Choosing Fixed width forces an the Auto-spreading width of the outline to remain the same regardless of the difference between the overprinting color and the underlying color. Having Auto-spreading enabled also enabled the Text above field which allows text below a certain size to be ignored by the Auto-spreading. This helps to prevent small text from being distorted by the spread. The Text above field is set in points to a maximum of 200.
If a PostScript printer is being used, the Use advanced settings check-box will make available the Advanced button. Clicking this button will open the Advanced Separations Settings box which permits a screening technology to be selected and also allows Frequency, Angle and Overprint settings to be specified for each color. The Halftone type can also be selected using this window. If default screening technology and halftone type will be used, the user can simply enable the Use advanced settings check-box and can then set Frequency, Angle and Overprint settings from the print dialog box by clicking the appropriate value for each color.
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Prepress
The Prepress tab in the CorelDRAW 12 print dialog box allows documents to be prepared for various printing processes. Paper/film settings allow the document to be inverted (printed in reverse) and mirrored (printed backward) if desired.
The File information section allows the Job name/slug line to be printed and edited as desired. By default, the Job name will be the filename. Print page numbers will number each page and Position within page will print the information within the boundary of the page. By default, file information is printed outside the page boundary.
Crop/fold marks when enabled will print on the document page. Crop marks specify the location of page corners and fold marks specify the location of page folds within the document layout. By default, Exterior only will also be enabled when Crop/fold marks are enabled and causes the marks to be printed outside the page boundaries. This option can be turned off.
Registration marks are used to align separations after they have been printed. Turning on the Print registration marks will result in the selected Style being printed on your document. The Style selector provides four different types of registration marks which can be selected and printed.
The Calibration bars section allows color calibration bars and densitometer scales to be printed outside the page boundary of the document. Calibration bars are used for verifying the accuracy of color density and will print a series of grayscale shades to be used for measuring this.
Marks to objects when selected will result in any selected prepress options being printed around the group of objects on each page of the document.
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PostScript
The PostScript tab will be visible only when the printer specified in the Name field of the General tab is PostScript compatible and allows options specific to the PostScript printing language to be adjusted.
The Compatibility section allows the PostScript level to be selected, however the combination of printer and PPD to be used will typically adjust this option automatically based on the limitations of the device. Older devices may be limited to PostScript Level 1 or 2 whereas most current devices are compatible with PostScript 3 technology. Document Structuring Convention (DSC) is a feature unique to PostScript which can include various advanced instructions for use during output. CorelDRAW provides the option to Conform to DSC during output.
The Bitmaps section will only be available when using PostScript Level 2 or PostScript 3 compatibility and allows JPEG compression to be enabled for the purposed of reducing the amount of time necessary to print bitmaps. When JPEG compression is enabled, a quality factor slider will also be enabled. The lower the quality, the smaller the file size and vise versa. Open Prepress Interface (OPI) links can be maintained, preserving the linking of low-resolution bitmap images to high-resolution, server-based ones. Also, Desktop Color Separation (DCS) links can be maintained, allowing linked images to replace the placeholder images when the document is printed. By default, this option will be turned on and, if turned off, the option will be provided to resolve the links manually when the document is printed.
The Screen frequency pull-down allows the screen frequency to be set for document output. This setting can also be specified in the Advanced options of the Separations tab.
The Fonts section allows Type 1 Fonts to be downloaded to the device. Doing this can result in faster printing and higher quality text. When this option is selected, the Convert True Type to Type 1 option will become available and is enabled by default.
The PDF marks section is useful if the document is to be printed as a composite to an Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) distiller and provides the ability to specify whether Full Screen, Page Only or Thumbnails will be displayed on document start. In addition to this, options are provided to include hyperlinks and bookmarks in the PDF document.
The Maximum points per curve controls the curve complexity when documents are printed. By default, the value will be 10,000 points (nodes) per curve however this value can be adjusted from 20 to 20,000. The higher the number, the more complex the curve and subsequently the more complex printing will be.
The Set flatness to field can be set from 0.20 to 100.0 and controls how smooth curves will be when printed. The higher the flatness, the less smooth curves will be.
The Auto increase flatness checkbox will automatically increase flatness in increments of 2 until the document prints.
Auto increase fountain steps is a means of avoiding banding in fountain fills and allows the document to be analyzed on output for areas where the number of fountain steps should be increased for this purpose. Increasing the number of fountain steps will result in fountain fills appearing smoother but comes at the expense of increasing the complexity of printing the document.
Optimize fountain fills does the opposite of the Auto increase fountain steps option and decreases the number of steps in fountain fills to the number that the printer is capable of outputting.
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Miscellaneous
This tab provides controls for a variety of options ranging from color profile settings to proofing options to bitmap downsampling options.
Apply ICC profile will become available only when printing to a color printer and allows a color profile to be used when printing. International Color Consortium (ICC) profiles contain information used to output colors as they appear on the monitor. When enabling the Apply ICC profile option, the settings specified in CorelDRAW's color management engine will be used. It is advised that only one color management system be used at any given time and if the printer uses its own color management it should be disabled prior to using CorelDRAW's color management.
The Print job information sheet provides the option to print a sheet with the print job which details all printing options from fonts used in the document to driver information to application information and settings. the Info Settings button provides the ability to specify which settings are included and also allows for a text file to be generated as well.
Proofing options allow only desired objects to be printed and is useful when checking for output issues prior to sending a document for final printing. Printing vector graphics, bitmaps and text can be toggled on or off and all text can be printed in black.
The Output color bitmaps as pull-down allows the color mode that will be used when outputting bitmaps to be specified. Available options include CMYK, RGB and Grayscale. If Separations is enabled, this option will be disabled.
The Fountain steps field is the number of steps used in fountain fills and can be set from 2 to 2,000. The higher the number, the more complex printing will be.
Rasterize entire page, when used will print an entire document at a specified resolution from 72 to 600 dpi. This feature is useful for proofing as well as for working around printing issues.
Bitmap downsampling is used to lower the resolution of bitmap images only and can specify different resolutions for Color, Grayscale or Monochrome bitmaps. Values can be set from 10 to 9,999 dpi.
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Issues
The Issues tab of the CorelDRAW print engine (better known as Preflight) will compare the specified printing options with the capabilities of the selected output device and material. Issues related to incompatibilities with the output device are automatically detected and are made visible in the Issues tab.
The top section of the Issues section will list all issues detected by CorelDRAW's Preflight engine and will provide a brief description of each issue. The bottom section will list causes for each issue and will point to specific items that triggered each issue. In addition to this, information and suggestions that will remedy the detected issues will also be made here.
Preflight issues can be disabled by selecting each listed issue and then enabling the Don't Check For This Issue Again checkbox located at the lower left of the Issues tab. Enabling this checkbox for an issue will result in Preflight ignoring subsequent issues of this type. With this said, documents can still be printed regardless of whether reported Preflight issues are resolved or not. Choosing not to remedy issues however, may result in incorrect or undesired output.
Clicking the Settings button will allow all of the issues detectable by CorelDRAW 12 to be individually toggled on or off.
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