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Topic: Distiller Server on NT4 with print Queues
Conf: (P-PDF) Prepress and Print, Msg: 22808
From: aandi
Date: 6/25/2001 04:36 PM
>To make life easier for users
>is it possible to do this so
>that users dont have to "save
>to file" instead they can just
>print to a printer in their
>printer list (pc) or select a
>printer from their chooser
>(mac) and the distiller or NT
>Server will do conversion to
>postscript file.
Um, looking at this little part, there is an important point. Conversion to PostScript is not only essential, but must be done by the drivers on the clients machine. Nothing else will do, because there is no other format that could pass from the client to the server that would be of any use to you.
That does *not* mean the user has to print to file. If your service can advertise itself as a PostScript printer, the user will be able to just print to it, and you'll be sent the PostScript. The rest - especially controlling Distiller and working out who the PostScript is from and how to return it - is server programming.
But, I'm curious. What are you hoping to gain? Local copies of the Distiller driver would seem to offer users the same facilities, possibly faster (no network traffic) and with no server-based programming complexities. Why not just buy Acrobat for everyone?
Distiller Server tends to fit workflows where the clients actually couldn't install Acrobat, or where the PostScript generation is server based. It is not a money saver, if you factor in the cost of server development.
