My Digital Color Press has a "Xerox EX700" External Fiery RIP which doesn't seem to be properly flattening or rasterizing my print jobs from Indesign CS5.
My DocuColor 250 with a bustled Fiery RIP, does just fine, and has no problem flattening print jobs.
The problem can easily be reproduced. Create a document, put an image or gradient in the back ground of the document, and then add a text box over that image or gradient.
Then add any effects to the text and the output becomes unacceptable on the 700, however it looks perfect on the DC250.
I suspect that there is some incompatibility between the Adobe Print Engine, and the EX700 Fiery RIP, however I haven't been able to confirm it since I've never gotten high enough in the Xerox Tech-Support chain to verify it.
If I am not mistaken, the Fiery on the DC250 is a PostScript 2 RIP, and the EX700 is a Postscript 3 RIP.
I do know that Adobe completely changed the Adobe Print Engine, a couple of versions ago (I think CS3), and now Indesign does no preflattening of the image if it detects a Postscript 3 printer during the print action. This is causing a significant problem for us as a printing company, because we rely on the 700 for daily production.
I have even attempted to use the built in ability to create a Postscript file, and send that directly to the EX700 RIP, and the output is still the same with any effected text showing a lightened box around it.
I created a Flattener preset that is supposed to completely flatten the print job in Indesign, however it doesn't affect the output from the 700.
A RIP (Raster Image Processor) is supposed to flatten the image sent to it, so that all the printer sees is a flattened image, with no additonal layers, however the EX700 does not seem to be doing this.
Anyone have a similar issue? If this can't be resolved, I'm going to send the 700 back because it is not doing what I need for a production machine.
