Rev printing woes in Leopard

[Joe Lewis Wilkins]

Hi Peter,

The only difference in what you're doing and what I'm doing (except  
for the nature of the actual output) is that you're having to store  
the print parameters for "several" different printers in a custom  
prop, and your program has to sort all of this out whenever you need  
to print. I think this is your bottle-neck, so...

I would suggest that you insert a method, whether menu or radio- 
button, so that you can identify the printer you're on at the time and  
provide the appropriate parameters at that time. I don't know if  
you're using a standalone or stacks, but making this change should be  
easy enough for you, and will provide a method by which you may even  
recognize "other printers" when the need finally arises.

We are printing the same way, using "print card into rect", though  
mine is on a Intel MacPro under Leopard on an Epson printer, and in  
full color.


HTH,

Joe Wilkins

On Dec 13, 2008, at 8:45 AM, Peter Brigham wrote:

> OK, so I had this iBook G4 (running Panther) that died, but managed  
> to get all my data over to my new MacBook Intel running OSX 10.5. I  
> have a stack system I use for my practice, which prints various  
> items using "print card into rect" from hidden stacks that are  
> filled by script. Very handy, very spiffy. I can print out  
> beautifully formatted prescriptions, notes, addressed envelopes,  
> copay receipts, forms, etc. Now suddenly on my new machine, it takes  
> forever for the printer to respond -- up to 1 full minute for Rev to  
> complete sending data to the printer (as shown in the printer status  
> window), and up to another full minute after the data is sent for  
> the printer to start churning out a page.
>
> This is almost a show-stopper for me, since I sometimes have to  
> print out 4-5 prescriptions and a receipt while the patient is in my  
> office. I'm using a Brother MFC-8220 laserjet, and have had zero  
> problems with this printer in several years up to now. When I print  
> from other apps there is a delay also compared to my old setup, but  
> it's only about 20 seconds. I'm using the latest Brother printer  
> driver. I have contacted Brother for advice, but the problem is  
> worst with Rev, and that's where I need reasonable speed the most.
>
> Since I use a laptop, I use about 5 different printers during  
> various parts of my week. My stack system stores the user-chosen  
> printersettings in a custom prop and sets the printersettings to  
> this just before printing. I have re-stored the printer settings for  
> the Brother printer after downloading the latest driver, figuring  
> maybe Rev was sending the old 10.4 driver settings to the OS, but  
> this doesn't help. Printing from my stack to another printer (an HP  
> AIO at home) is a little slow but nothing like with the Brother  
> machine. And printing from my stack to a cheap little HP inkjet  
> printer at another venue results in the paper shuttling back and  
> forth in the printer feeder and then successfully printing most of  
> the page but stopping about 0.2 inches before the bottom of the page  
> content and leaving the paper in the printer, half sticking out.  
> (Which is really weird.)
>
> I don't really care about the HP inkjet problem, it's printing on  
> the Brother I have to fix, since my private practice where I use my  
> stack system has the Brother machine. But the strange behavior of  
> the inkjet in addition to the Brother points more to some wrinkle in  
> Rev printing or my stack printing setup that I'm missing. Any ideas?  
> I need to get this working again, and I'm getting more and more  
> desperate.
>
> Peter M. Brigham
> pmbrig at gmail.com