Expert: Amy - 4/6/2004

Question
Hi,
I'm on a Mac, using Illustrator 10.  I'm having a problem that is related to Illustrator but maybe a result of something else?  Lately, when I print separations out of Quark Xpress 4.x, with a postscript font or with an .eps file...I get type that is angly (instead of nice curves on the S, you see what looks like a sloppy dot-to-dot effect).  I am printing to a Xante Platemaker 3 b/w laserprinter, Adobe postscript 3.  Are there different levels of postscript?  Do you have any suggestions as to why this might be happening?
Thank you.
Marianne

Answer
Yes there are different levels of PostScript, but this doesn't sound like it's related to that, necessarily.

As a test, why don't you export the file as a PDF and print it directly from Acrobat - see if you get the same results.

If you get the same results, go through your printer setup carefully and make sure you don't have anything set to High speed or draft and turn off any special printer 'features' which could effect output.

If it's smooth when printing from Acrobat, we can look at Quark. I'm no Quark expert... but I do have 4.x, though, so we'll follow up on that aspect after troubleshooting the printer driver itself.

Additionally, does this happen when printing from AI?

And get back to me with what you find out
Amy