LaserWriter 8.x: Print Servers Issues

We've experienced some oddities with the LaserWriter Pro 810, Print Server 3.0 and 4.0 and QuarkXpress 3.11. The spooler Queue and Log windows contain extraneous entries (four lines rather than one) and the Document name and User name appear in parenthesis. During the spooling process, the document name appears during the postscript prolog creation but then disappears while the document is printing. It's as if the prolog is a separately spooled document from the actual document.

We are using Laserwriter 8.1.1. The Pro 810 PPD file must be manually selected when going thru either 3.0 or 4.0 spooler, rather than using the generic PPD which is selected by Auto-Setup in order to get the Ledger page size pop-up in the Page Setup dialog box in QuarkXpress.
What you report are characteristics of clients printing using the LaserWriter 8.x driver. The print servers don't entirely support the those drivers and the queries they make.

1. At the beginning of every 8.x print job, the driver first opens a separate query job to obtain information about the target device, including its features, fonts, and other characteristics. This query is listed first in brackets in the Spooler Queue. The second job listed in the Spooler Queue is your actual document to be printed (note the spooler will cite the number of pages in that print job). The Spooler Log lists the start and completion times of each of the above jobs, for a total of four entries.

2. The client is unable to obtain printer information via the print server resulting in the generic PPD being offered. You must manually select the printer's specific PPD if you wish to use its special features via the Print dialogs (as compared to downloading specific PostScript commands to control the printer and print job, which doesn't require the specific PPD).
Published Date: Feb 19, 2012