Quark Forums

Hi there,

I have a huge problem with QuarkXpress 7.5 and 8.12 in Windows XP and Vista 32-bit: We have a CanoniRC2380i with the Adobe PS Card included. Once I install the printer driver either local or over our W2K8 printer server the printing dialog in Quark comes up very slowly, e.g. I press Ctrl + P and about 10 seconds later the screen shows up.
I select my Canon printer and print. Everything seems to be fine, also the page comes out of the printer perfectly. BUT when I try to print again I get the following message: Zugriff auf die Datei "Xpress Preferences" (XPress Vorgaben) nicht möglich. [12] (English: Cannot access the file XPress Preferences)

After that I cannot use Quark becuase nothing works anymore. I have to close and restart Quark. In Quark 8.12 itasks me if I want to install any printers. That also happens when I don't press print on the printing dialog but just close the dialog again. After some conversation with Canon technical support they tell me that it must be a problem with Quark handeling bi-directional printer drivers since the Canon driver asks the status of the printer.

After this I have tested the Canon PPD with the Adobe Postscript driver and it works, but since I cannot acces the printer mailboxes it is no use for us.

The last test I made was with Windows 7 and there we go: the SAME printer driver works perfectly with Quark 7.5 and 8.12. Also the delay when showing the printing dialog is gone. In 32-bit and 64-bit.

Does anyone have a clue how to fix this? I would really need this, because we bought this printer and we need to use it with the original driver from canon, because of the mailbox system.

I would appreciate some help on the subject.

Thanks in advance.

Jens

There are three issues that I see here. Please find the details below:

Issue # 1: Invoking the Print takes more time

This issue is occurring due to the no. of Fonts installed in the system. It may take upto 30 secs to Open Print/PDF dialog after scanning if more than 1500 fonts are installed.

Workaround:
Change the Default Printer to any Print to File Printer (a Virtual Printer) and launch QXP with Fresh Preferences and then invoke Print dialog. OR Try with lesser number of Fonts (deactivate fonts that are not in use).

Issue # 2: “Cannot Access Preferences” error on Printing:

This is occurring due to the XLS, EPS, PDF/AI Files Placed in the QXP Document and Printing to Non-PS Printers.

Workaround:
Kindly output to PS Printer. Or Reimport the XLS, EPS, PDF/AI File and output again.

Issue # 3: Prompt to Install Printers

When no Printers / Printer Drivers are available in the PPD Folder. QuarkXPress will show the warning to install the printers.

Workaround:
After installing the Printer Go to Utilities > PPD Manager and Update.
After updating the PPD Manager open the Project to Print and Print it again. Or
Make Microsoft XPS Document Writer as Default Printer and launch QuarkXPress with fresh Pref. (PPD Folder in Pref. needs to be updated) and output.

How to Create fresh Preferences:

 1. Please create a new folder named "Preferences" inside "Program Files > Quark".

Thank you for your quick response. To clear things up, I have tried quite a few things before on different computers, but I also just tried again the things you wrote:

To Issue #1: There are about 1000 fonts installed on the system, OpenType, Type1 and TrueType. If I uninstall some of the fonts, the printing dialog does not come up quicker. Only when I uninstall the Canon printer driver the printing dialog comes up as fast as ever. So the speed is just depending on whether the Canon driver is installed or not. I also tried to set the default printer to a file printer which did not help either.

To Issue #2:  We only have PS printer in our office. Since we are using Quark from version 3 on we have always had Postscript printer. I tried to make a new document with just a text box and some text in it. No EPS, PDF or anything. Even this one will print once and then I get the XPress Preferences error. Again, this will not happen if the printer driver is not installed.

To Issue #3: The Printers are installed. The Canon prints the page once and it comes out perfectly. After that when I press Ctrl + P again I get an error either that Xpress cannot read the Preferences or that there is no printer installed. When I go to the PPD manager I see all the printers and Update works perfectly, but I still cannot print anymore.

I tried all these steps with fresh Preferences.

The guy from canon told me that Quark probably has a timeout on the print dialog and due to the bidirectional printer driver it runs intothat timeout.

Is there any chance this is true or possible?

Best regards and thanks in advance.