Thoughts on this?

Ok, here is my dilemma. We have a kip and a calcomp plotter running on a
UNIX network. We are in the process of upgrading to a Windows 2003 server
and getting a new kip plotter. The thought is we will use the new kip as the
workhorse and keep the old kip as a back up if the new one goes down.


Well as you can imagine, there is one print driver for the new one and one
for the old. (no the don't work together) So my issue is if some one prints
100 plots and the new kip goes down, they have to recreate the plots for the
old kip.


Now if one can use Pushbutton PDF, Acroplot or simply Adobe to create pdfs
on a network directory, can you create a "script" that runs on the server
that will copy the pdfs to the printer (send to lpt1 like the old dos days)
and move the pdf to a different directory to be deleted later? This way if
the new plotter goes down, the pdfs can be sent to the old plotter with only
the pdfs in the new plotters memory having to be recreated.

 

Instead of thinking of PDF, i would suggest a plotter language that is used by the 2 KIP plotters, like HPGL or CALS or TIFF.
We use different OCE plotters TDS600 and 9300, but plot to the same CALS format first and then submit this Black-and White raster to the plotters. Because it is universal, the plotters do not have to "rasterize" any more the data they are fed, and they start reacting immediatly when the plot is submit.

To make the plot files we use InterPlot Server and the InterPlot Drivers.

 

Thanks. The old Kip plotter will not play nice with any other plotter

(including the new Kip) and hates HPGL and CALS.

We chose PDF cause it's usually easier, quicker and smaller then Tiffs.

 

What models of KIP Plotters do you have. And do you have the PowerPrint Software. The PowerPrint software will convert plot files to PDF of Tiff which either plotter should read.
We plot everything to file then send it to the KIP plotter with PowerPrint. If someone needs another set just send it again.