HP DesignJet Z6100 Poster Printing Instructions for a Macintosh

All posters printed on the DesignJet Z6100 Poster Printer are first rendered by an Onyx Graphics print station (RIP). You need to send your PostScript file to the Onyx Graphics RIP to be rendered for the printer. (You can not print directly to the printer.) To be able to send the PostScript file, you must optain the Onyx Graphics printer description file that matches our setup for the HP DesignJet Z6100. Do not use the HP DesignJet Z6100 Printer description file that comes on your Mac.

Download the PPD file

Obtain PPD file

Before you set up your printer for the HP DesignJet Z6100, you must download the Onyx Graphics PostScript printer description file and move it to the correct location on your Mac:

1. Download the PPD file to your desktop.
2. Move it to your printer resources folder: /Library/Printers/PPDs/Contents/Resources/en.lproj/.

Add the HP DesignJet Z6100 to your printer list

The Adobe PostScript print driver is already installed as part of Mac OS X, and if you have installed the PPD in the correct location, you are ready add the HP DesignJet Z6100 to your printer list.

Use the Printer Setup Utility to add the HP DesignJet Z6100 to your printer list. Here is the information you need to fill in the form for OS 10.5 and later:

IP Printing   Protocol: LPD Address: 128.175.8.236 Queue: HPZ6100_DJRIP Name: HP DesignJet Z6100 Location: Smith I/O Print using: From the dropdown menu select "Other" and browse to the printer resources folder to select the HP DesignJet Z6100 PPD file.

Following is the window as it appears if you have not updated to OS 10.5 (Leopard). Click Add to add the HP DesignJet Z6100 to your printer list.

Create your poster

Design your poster project with the correct paper size using the application of your choice. Below is an example for creating a poster using PowerPoint. Although Powerpoint was not designed for poster production, many people have the product and are happy with its results.

Create a project in PowerPoint

The HP Z6100 prints documents converted to PostScript files as they pass through the Onyx RIP station.

• Open a new PowerPoint document.
• Choose Page Setup from the File menu.
• From the Slides Sized For pull-down menu, choose Custom and enter your poster's dimensions.
• Design your poster and save it in case you need to make revisions later.

Preview your poster

There are two options for previewing your poster:

• Print menu Preview button

From your application's Print menu, click the Preview button. This shows you a preview of your poster as a PDF file.

• Save as PDF

From your application's Print menu, click the Save As PDF button and give the file a ".pdf" extension or use Adobe Acrobat distiller to save your poster file as a PDF file. 

• Note: If you are using specialized fonts to produce your poster and those fonts are not installed on the HP Z6100, you must have Adobe Acrobat on your system and make sure that your fonts are embedded in the poster file.
• Important: If you have layered PDF files, choose the "compress" option in Acrobat before sending them to the printer.

Print your poster

Once you have previewed your file, you have two options for printing it:

• Bring it to the Smith computing site for printing.
  or
  
• Print directly from your computer to the HP DesignJet Z6100 printer through the Onyx Graphics print station (RIP).

Note: If your page-size height is less than 42", turn on transverse printing. To do this:

1. From the File menu of your application, click Print.
2. Select the HPZ6100_DJRIP printer.
3. From the Copies & Pages pull-down menu, select Printer Features.
4. On the Printer Features screen, from the Feature Sets pull-down menu, select Set 1.
   
5. From the Print Transverse pull-down menu, select On.
   You can select Copies and Pages from the pull-down menu to choose more options or
   
6. Click OK to print your poster through the Onyx Graphics print station (RIP).

After you send your poster to the printer, you will have to release the print job to have the poster printed.