Plotting to Acrobat Distiller Server

Does anyone have any experience with plotting to the Acrobat Distiller
Server? I.e., my understanding is that you plot to .eps files to a certain
folder, the distiller watches that folder, and creates pdf files somewhere
else....

To me, it sounds cumbersome, and using something like PDF995 is easier and
much less expensive.

How does the end user actually interface w/ the Distiller Server to get his
PDF files? I.e., what does it take for 50 people to be able to use it, and
have it about as mindless as sending a single plot.

Thanks for any input.

 

The PDF creators that I know all make a PostScript file first and then
convert that to PDF. As this two-steps process usually happens "on the fly",
it is hard to notice and nobody cares, but basically this is the same
process as with the Distiller Server. When you use the Distiller server, you
will use a PostScript driver on each workstation; the output goes to a hot
folder on the server. As usual with server applications, you can controll
the Distiller settings centrally - usually good for an environment with many
users. When you use the single user Distiller driver on each workstation,
you may get different settings, so different results per workstation; Imo
this is more cumbersome; on the other hand you have maximum flexibility and
it costs less for a small number of workstations. If you are interested in a
server solution, I would suggest that you also take a look at the cheaper
Jaws PDF Creator Server (http://www.jawspdf.com/pdf_server/).

Govert

 

we use it in conjunction with a "virtual" HP 750C PS plotter.
Everyone plots to this plotter (witch is shared on the same server) like it were a normal network printer. The print results in a PS file witch is located in the "watched" folder of Distiler.
This changes it to a PDF. Because the filename of the plot file has the username it it, a Bathc job then can move the PDF into a folder withc name is equal to the username, so every user has a seperate folder (only for him accessible) where he can find his plot files.