Wacky Onyx size compensation

[genericname]

Ooooh Onyx. What a funny RIP. At first I thought it was all business, printing everything during the day at perfect sizes, just wanting to get the job done. Then after printing a huge multi-panel display overnight, I find out Onyx likes to joke around too! All my 39" panels are missing nearly a quarter of an inch! Haha! So funny! I may just smash the RIP station with my wacky baseball bat!

Anyone run into this that didn't solve it through destruction of physical property? I would hate to ruin the fun though!

Printing on a JV3-250SP with Onyx 7 (yeah yeah, I'm the printer, not the purchasing department)

 

[omgsideburns]

Is your printer calibration off? I don't know anything about your printer, but whenever I have size issues it's not onyx, but my printer.

 

[genericname]

Is your printer calibration off? I don't know anything about your printer, but whenever I have size issues it's not onyx, but my printer.

Just recently recalibrated, actually. Everything's perfect. This really does seem like a random issue. Printing all day yesterday, with the exact same settings as I did last night, even with everything on the take-up reel under tension, and we mysteriously lost a sizeable piece of our print.

This seems to happen a lot with Onyx. Every couple weeks or so, we're given a little surprise in the form of a display panel that won't match to our systems at all, even though everything printed before it was fine.

Hate to say it, but I never had this issue with Flexi.

 

[MikePro]

missing the 1/4" or was it auto-scaled down 1/4"?
if its the latter, my onyx likes to do that too when it thinks I have a shorter material width than I'm trying to make my print on at full scale.

i always just lie, and tell my printer its a 63" roll, when I'm really just trying to print 53" on my 54" media. (also noted, there's a thread here to change available roll sizes and margins, in a text editor, without having to go through media manager)

 

[genericname]

missing the 1/4" or was it auto-scaled down 1/4"?
if its the latter, my onyx likes to do that too when it thinks I have a shorter material width than I'm trying to make my print on at full scale.

i always just lie, and tell my printer its a 63" roll, when I'm really just trying to print 53" on my 54" media. (also noted, there's a thread here to change available roll sizes and margins, in a text editor, without having to go through media manager)

I'm definitely going to check out that thread, as going through Media Manager is a pain, though it's not the root of this problem. It's not the sides of the print getting chopped, but rather the whole print getting shrunken on the vertical axis.

Scale Adjust is in effect, with a compensation ratio of 0.994. This is the only cause I can think of, but that 0.994 ratio was adjusting panels to the perfect size not an hour before starting this batch of prints. If I turn scale adjust off, my prints are too tall.

 

[MikePro]

i'll save ya the time, still had the window opened up on my printer computer

from onyxtalk forums:

With ProductionHouse Closed...

1) Locate the '.Settings.xml' inside your printer folder (ie C:\Onyx10\db\Printers\Roland XC-540)

2) Make a backup of the file (one already exists, but I make another)

3) Open the file with a decent text editor (not windows notepad) which retains formatting. (ie Notepad++)

4) Locate the 'PageSizes' section.

Code:

<node name="PageSizes">
<node name="54 Inch Roll"(name that shows up on your list) access="Fixed" height="1200 in" type="Roll" width="53.0 in"/> (values recognized by your rip/printer)
<node name="50 Inch Roll" access="Fixed" height="1200.0 in" type="Roll" width="49.0 in"/>
<node name="42 Inch Roll" access="Fixed" height="1200.0 in" type="Roll" width="41.0 in"/>
<node name="36 Inch Roll" access="Fixed" height="600.0 in" type="Roll" width="35.0 in"/>
<node name="24 Inch Roll" access="Fixed" height="600.0 in" type="Roll" width="23.0 in"/>
<node name="30 Inch Roll" access="Fixed" height="1200.0 in" type="Roll" width="29.0 in"/>
</node>


5) Edit your width as necessary and save.

 

[Bly]

You can change media sizes easily through Rip-Queue

File > Manage Printers > select printer > Page sizes.

This can be trap for the unwary - if the roll isn't wide enough the rip will automatically scale the job down to fit. I can't imagine any circumstance where that would be ideal.

To avoid it happening you can either set the roll a size wider, or turn on tiling in your Quick Sets.
That way you'll probably pick it up in the job thumbnail before printing.

 

[genericname]

Thanks Mike!

Bly, scaling is definitely not the issue. I make sure to double check my dimensions in Preflight before sending to RIP, and once it's RIPed, once more in the listed dimensions of the job in the ProductionHouse RIP Queue. Width isn't a problem; it's the height that varies randomly, not adhering to a specific pattern of stretching or shrinking.

 

[BPI Color]

It may have something to do with your print file. If you're using eps (it was the recommended format for 7.3.2 - it's what I have, too) as your print file and have a stray point or orphan text object outside your media bounds it could be getting picked up by Onyx.
For the record, I use PDF's for about 80% of what I print.

 

[genericname]

It may have something to do with your print file. If you're using eps (it was the recommended format for 7.3.2 - it's what I have, too) as your print file and have a stray point or orphan text object outside your media bounds it could be getting picked up by Onyx.
For the record, I use PDF's for about 80% of what I print.

Hrmmm... that's very possible. Wouldn't that just make the calculated size larger though, and not actually modify the graphical portion of the file? I'm not experiencing odd resizing in the proof, but in the actual, physical print.

We rarely print anything but EPS, with TIFF as a very rare fall-back.

 

[Nishan]

Please also make sure that the resolutions are not changed...

 

[Bly]

Thanks Mike!

Bly, scaling is definitely not the issue. I make sure to double check my dimensions in Preflight before sending to RIP, and once it's RIPed, once more in the listed dimensions of the job in the ProductionHouse RIP Queue. Width isn't a problem; it's the height that varies randomly, not adhering to a specific pattern of stretching or shrinking.

Ahh in that case go into Media manager.
There's a scaling option in there - you print a strip, measure it, then type in the actual length then a compensation scale is applied to every job printed after that.

 

[genericname]

Ahh in that case go into Media manager.
There's a scaling option in there - you print a strip, measure it, then type in the actual length then a compensation scale is applied to every job printed after that.

That's the problem... I've used the scale adjust, and the adjustment it outputs is random. One minute it's spot on. The next minute, it's short, and the next after that, too long.

 

[Bly]

Yeah I never expect printed lengths to be exact.
I just assumed it was the nature of roll fed LF printers.

 

[BPI Color]

Hrmmm... that's very possible. Wouldn't that just make the calculated size larger though, and not actually modify the graphical portion of the file? I'm not experiencing odd resizing in the proof, but in the actual, physical print.

We rarely print anything but EPS, with TIFF as a very rare fall-back.

It was just a guess. However, what we're dealing with is an error in page size. But since I don't have this error (praise Elvis) so I can't say what it is. Did you create your page tiles through Quark, InDesign, Illustrator or Onyx?
My normal approach would be to create my own page tiles rather than use the Onyx features. Less calculating for it and only a negligible extra amount of work for me.

 

[BPI Color]

One last thought. Onyx (7.3.2 - can't speak for 10) is vulnerable to corruptions when it is left open. If your IT department has scheduled virus scans and defrags make sure Onyx is off. It's a good idea to turn that work station off and let the ITs do a remote launch.

 

[genericname]

...Did you create your page tiles through Quark, InDesign, Illustrator or Onyx?
My normal approach would be to create my own page tiles rather than use the Onyx features. Less calculating for it and only a negligible extra amount of work for me.

I typically pull the whole image from the Illustrator generated EPS, then tile with overlaps in Onyx. Haven't had any issues there, mind you. Almost all of our panels have the exact same amount of overlap, so I have a system going in regards to the numbers I need to punch in to get whatever panel the size it needs to be.

One last thought. Onyx (7.3.2 - can't speak for 10) is vulnerable to corruptions when it is left open. If your IT department has scheduled virus scans and defrags make sure Onyx is off. It's a good idea to turn that work station off and let the ITs do a remote launch.

Wellllllll now! That sounds like it could be the ghost in the machine I've been looking for. Had no idea. I'll make sure to do that from now on.

 

[BPI Color]

I typically pull the whole image from the Illustrator generated EPS, then tile with overlaps in Onyx. Haven't had any issues there, mind you. Almost all of our panels have the exact same amount of overlap, so I have a system going in regards to the numbers I need to punch in to get whatever panel the size it needs to be.



Wellllllll now! That sounds like it could be the ghost in the machine I've been looking for. Had no idea. I'll make sure to do that from now on.

If you continue to have this problem, I'd recommend a complete uninstall/reinstall. If you have the time (or can make it), do this anyway and eliminate one possible source of your page tile issue.

Just for giggles. You might try making a PDF independent tile with the correct bleed/overlap built into it. RIP and print to see if you still get the size distortion. I'd do that before an un/reinstall. Obviously, you'd want to pick one of the tiles that errors. I'd use InDesign before Quark. The navigation and place features are a bit more robust there. Make sure your transperancy flattener is set to the high quality to avoid outlining strokes, etc...

Good luck, and if you ever find an exact solution please share with the class.