printing half-tone illustrations in e23 PDFs

Agemegos · 06-01-2010, 08:45 PM

The e23 books that I expect to give heavy use, especially the ones I plan to use with a pencil in my hand, I printer out on a black & white laser printer. This is quick and cheap, it never has problems with blocked jets, and the resulting pages don't smudge.

At the moment I am using Adobe Reader to print out my books, but this presents a problem:

if I switch half-tone printing on then the text comes out with jagged edges on the type, and is difficult and unpleasant to read;
if I switch half-toning off the print is lovely and sharp, but the half-tone illustrations are ugly and undecipherable blobs of black and white, and waste huge amounts of toner (the picture of Mars buggies on p. 20 of GURPS City Stats must have cost over a buck in toner and is hideous and indecipherable).

Can anyone suggest a program that will print out PDFs half-toning the illustrations but not half-toning the type? Or that will print out the text of PDFs and blank the illustrations?

Anaraxes · 06-01-2010, 10:40 PM

Does "Print As Image" help? (The thought being to take any printer driver halftoning out of the way.)

ericbsmith · 06-01-2010, 10:55 PM

This may be tweakable with some setting hidden in your printer properties somewhere. Mine, for instance, has options to darken text and print all text as black that can make text look much sharper. As Anaraxes suggests, Printing as Image, under the Advanced button when you go to print in Acrobat may also help.

Agemegos · 06-01-2010, 11:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

Does "Print As Image" help? (The thought being to take any printer driver halftoning out of the way.)

That doesn't seem to help. With "print as image" and half-toning on I get the same as straight-up printing with the half-toning on. With "print and image" and the half-toning off I get hideous blobs in place of all the greyscale images, and the type, though not speckled, is lower-res and uglier than straight-up printing with half-toning off.

Daeglan · 06-11-2010, 12:04 AM

try uypdating your printer drivers. Maybe they have a bug. also update acrobat.

06-01-2010, 08:45 PM	#1
Agemegos Join Date: May 2005 Location: Oz	printing half-tone illustrations in e23 PDFs The e23 books that I expect to give heavy use, especially the ones I plan to use with a pencil in my hand, I printer out on a black & white laser printer. This is quick and cheap, it never has problems with blocked jets, and the resulting pages don't smudge. At the moment I am using Adobe Reader to print out my books, but this presents a problem: if I switch half-tone printing on then the text comes out with jagged edges on the type, and is difficult and unpleasant to read; if I switch half-toning off the print is lovely and sharp, but the half-tone illustrations are ugly and undecipherable blobs of black and white, and waste huge amounts of toner (the picture of Mars buggies on p. 20 of GURPS City Stats must have cost over a buck in toner and is hideous and indecipherable). Can anyone suggest a program that will print out PDFs half-toning the illustrations but not half-toning the type? Or that will print out the text of PDFs and blank the illustrations?

06-01-2010, 10:40 PM	#2
Anaraxes Join Date: Sep 2007	Re: printing half-tone illustrations in e23 PDFs Does "Print As Image" help? (The thought being to take any printer driver halftoning out of the way.)

06-01-2010, 10:55 PM	#3
ericbsmith Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Binghamton, NY, USA. Near the river Styx in the 5th Circle.	Re: printing half-tone illustrations in e23 PDFs This may be tweakable with some setting hidden in your printer properties somewhere. Mine, for instance, has options to darken text and print all text as black that can make text look much sharper. As Anaraxes suggests, Printing as Image, under the Advanced button when you go to print in Acrobat may also help. __________________ Eric B. Smith GURPS Data File Coordinator GURPSLand I shall pull the pin from this healing grenade and... Kaboom-baya.

06-11-2010, 12:04 AM	#5
Daeglan Join Date: Jun 2010	Re: printing half-tone illustrations in e23 PDFs try uypdating your printer drivers. Maybe they have a bug. also update acrobat.