Printing - Best practices for printing

Summary

This guide is designed to help you achieve optimal printing results, especially when printing PDFs with precise parameters necessary for the accurate recording of strokes by our digital pen. From ensuring high-resolution prints to managing printer settings, you'll find essential tips to maintain the integrity of your printed dot patterns and ensure seamless functionality.

Print settings are usually adjusted using switches to control the lower-level print engine. These switches could be set in a number of ways depending on tool or SDK used (function parameter, GUI dialog or via print profile).

• If a GUI based tool is used, there is normally an advanced printer dialog in which to set these.
• If using our SDK, there is normally some kind of extra function or function parameter where to specify these print switches.
• Then there are also the print profiles which could always be used. For more info about general print switches, for Anoto documents, please see the tool’s / SDK’s documentation.

For the input layout

1. Use vector based graphics* in layout

   This will normally give smaller files, better resolution and faster processing (especially regarding color separation)

2. Avoid bitmaps in layout (especially with high resolution)

   Avoid including bitmap images such as photos in the form design. Bitmaps normally need a high resolution to look good after printout. This will lead to large files, slow print and a long time for generation.

3. Avoid having too many graphical elements

   Pretty self-explanatory, the more graphical elements, the larger the files. Which in turn, results in longer processing times.

4. Avoid having very complex graphical elements

   Vector based graphics which are very complex, takes longer to process.

5. Avoid using “odd” color spaces (if possible, only use the CMYK color space)

   If using “odd” color spaces like PANTONE these will probably be altered/changed since the base color space in our tools is CMYK. So if possible, try making the layout design using only CMYK colors.

6. Avoid having too high color depth

   High color depth (more bits) gives larger files, which takes a longer time to both process and print.

Form design when adding Anoto functionality/settings for printing

1. Put pattern only in drawing areas, where strokes are to be recorded

   Only apply pattern to areas where you are going to write with the Anoto pen (instead of having pattern all over the page). This has a number of benefits:

   (a) Faster print, since processing of the pattern on the printer is both CPU demanding and time consuming.

   (b) Smaller files since pattern take quite a lot of space.

   (c) Less toner is needed for printing.

   (d) It gives the end-user a visual hint on where to write.

2. Use maximum postscript compression (Flate)

   Try to always use the maximum postscript compression (Flate encoding, but this requires postscript 3 compatibility on printer). This level is set by a print switch (in GUI dialog, by a function parameter or in a print profile) and it will give significantly smaller files.

3. Make sure that the highest pattern compression level is used (d3, default)

   Make sure that the highest pattern compression level is used, which is “dotlevel=3” (in print profiles) or “-d3” (function parameter switch). This compression level will give both smaller files and faster printouts.

4. Select “Postscript forms”, if possible

   Try to use the “Postscript forms” option (set this option in GUI dialog, as a function parameter or in a print profile), which is useful when the same image(s) is used many times in the output file.

   With “Postscript forms”, an image will only be represented once in the output (file or printer data) even if used in many places/copies. This will result in much smaller files and faster processing times. Note that this option is not supported by all printers.

5. If output (file or printer data) size becomes very large

   (a) Try lowering the internal conversion resolution** (print switch “resolution”)

   If large output size (file or printer data) is a problem, especially when using bitmap based layouts, then try to lower the internal conversion resolution (default is 600 dpi). Change it for example to 300 dpi, using the print option/switch “--resolution 300”. However this might cause problems. Therefore check the output, to ensure that the quality is still high enough.

   This switch is not for the overall final output resolution since postscript and PDF are vector based formats. Only for the parts which are represented as bitmaps, which might be embedded into the vector based formats.

   (b) Try using print mode “raw” instead (gives no color separation and might be more unstable)

   If color changes and/or large output size (file or print data) are an issue (this might be the case especially when using bitmap based layout), use the “raw” setting (print switch set as option in GUI dialog, as a function parameter or in a print profile). This will bypass all processing of the input layout leaving it unmodified. It could be used for both laser and offset printing:

   (i) Offset print and RAW mode: This might cause more unstable solutions, depending on how well formatted the input layout data is.

   (ii) Laser print and RAW mode: There will be no color separation; this instead has to be done before, in an earlier stage, when designing the form layout. It might also cause a more unstable solution depending on the input format.

Other things to keep in mind

1. Ensure that the correct print driver is used

   We always recommend to use the printer's PS (PostScript) print driver, where available. However, if your printer model does not have this specific print driver, then no matter, as GDI and PCL are supported too.

2. Disable Scaling

   Make sure scaling options are turned off in your print settings to avoid any distortion.

3. Center Alignment

   Double-check that the print is centered on the page to ensure the dot pattern is correctly positioned.

4. Test Prints

   Always do a test print on a regular printer to verify the dot pattern before using the digital pen.

5. Printer Calibration

   Regularly calibrate your printer to maintain consistent print quality.

6. Use Compatible Printers

   Ensure the printers you use are compatible with your software and can handle the specific printing requirements.

* Vector based graphics are graphics expressed in equations, instead of a bitmap. A number of design tools have the capability to create a design using vector graphics, for example Adobe’s Tools.

** “Internal conversion resolution” is the resolution used by lower level print engine when converting bitmap data/images from one format to another. Should be quite high to preserve quality, but this might give very large file sizes and slow print times.