4 Preferences

This chapter lists all preferences that are pertinent to PrintPreview. Find a description of how to set, view, change or delete preferences, with the HELIOS utility programs "prefdump", "prefvalue", and "prefrestore", in the Base manual.

Important: Make sure that preference keys DO NOT start or end with a slash ("/") character, and note that they are case-sensitive! Also, if any preference key or preference value includes spaces, that key or value must be enclosed in quotes.

The parameter controls whether or not you want to have previews of the separation plates of your document.

Determines the text rendering quality. There are two values available, "high", which is the default, and "low". "high" means that a font-specific algorithm is utilized for rendering the glyphs more accurately. "low" has the advantage of faster rendering.

Determines the image rendering quality. There are two values available, "high", which is the default, and "low". If an image has a higher resolution than the output device, and is therefore downscaled, a better image rendering algorithm is used. This needs some time, so this preference is primarily meant to switch this algorithm off.

This preference controls whether or not the composite view of your document is included in the preview file.

This preference will induce PrintPreview to keep the preview file in the preview queue instead of forwarding it to a hold queue. Set this preference to FALSE if you want to activate automatic forwarding of print jobs.

This preference controls whether or not smoothing of contours should be applied to the preview files. It should only be switched to FALSE if the preview resolution (see resolution) exceeds the monitor resolution.

By default, PrintPreview generates an info page for each job on a preview queue and adds it to the preview file. Set this preference to FALSE to switch off the insertion of the info page.

This preference lets you specify the resolution (in dpi) you want to have for your preview files.

Allowed strings for defining the compression of preview files are none, zip, and jpeg. none is the default. zip is best-suited, because it guarantees lossless compression. The jpeg quality of compression depends on jpegquality (see below).

This preference lets you specify the JPEG compression quality of preview files in a range from 1-100.

JPEG Low Quality 20
JPEG Medium Quality 50
JPEG High Quality 75
JPEG Maximum Quality 100

If set to TRUE, preview files will contain thumbnails of all pages you have printed.

You can define a resolution for the thumbnails. The default resolution is 8 dpi.

PrintPreview uses for PostScript interpretation the PostScript level that is stated in the queue's PPD file. In case no PPD file has been assigned, the default language level is 2. If this preference is set to FALSE it induces PrintPreview to ignore the PPD file entry and to use the default PostScript Level 2.

With this option, you can force PrintPreview to use a specific PostScript language level. Possible values are "1", "2", and "3". If you set languagelevel, this will override the PPD file setting, and the option ppdlanguagelevel - if it is specified at all - will be ignored as well.

Usually, PostScript errors - if there are any - are added to the printer log file. You can switch off the recording of PostScript errors by setting the flag to FALSE.

A preview queue can be regarded as an RGB or CMYK PostScript device. When rendering a job on a preview queue, a so-called CRD (Color Rendering Dictionary) is required for the transformation of PostScript CIE-based colors in a job. Two CRDs are initialized by default - one for the transformation of CIE-based colors into RGB and one for the transformation into CMYK. The RGB CRD corresponds to sRGB, the CMYK CRD corresponds to Euroscale CMYK. The swopcrd flag can be used to change the CMYK standard and select SWOP instead of Euroscale. Particularly customers with SWOP printing inks should set this flag.

This preference controls the PostSctipt virtual memory of PrintPreview (in bytes) for creating screen previews in layout files. You should use the parameter to enter a value higher than the default - lower values are not recommended.

This preference controls the global PostSctipt virtual memory of PrintPreview (in bytes) for creating screen previews in layout files. You should use the parameter to enter a value higher than the default - lower values are not recommended.

This preference may be used to save new preview files automatically into an already created "pdfdir" directory on the server. The value for this preference must be a full UNIX path name, e.g. "/data/previews". The hold queue contains a symbolic link to the preview file in the "pdfdir" directory.

Note: If the print job is renamed or removed from its original location the link does not work anymore and you will not be able to access the preview from HELIOS Admin.

Note: Preview files that are saved into a UNIX directory (using this preference) will automatically be assigned a file name extension, namely ".pdf".

If a file is sent to a preview queue, with this option set to FALSE, the print job remains "untouched" and is processed without any changes.

This preference will only be recognized if pdfdir is specified as well. With "str", you can define a file name prefix for all preview files that are sent to the selected directory. This can help you classify your previews if you have several preview queues and save all preview files into the same directory.

This preference will only be recognized if pdfdir is specified as well. It lets you enter the path to a UNIX program, e.g. "/usr/local/bin/pdfnotify". This program will be started automatically after printing has been finished successfully.

HELIOSDIR=
<environment variable for the HELIOS install path>

HELIOS_JOBFOR=
<user name (if available) of print job creator>

HELIOS_JOBUSER=
<user name (if available) as known to "lpd">

HELIOS_JOBHOST=
<name (if available) of server which hosts the printer queue>

HELIOS_JOBTITLE=
<print job title (if available)>

HELIOS_PRINTERNAME=
<logical (UNIX) name of the printer queue>

HELIOS_JOBPAGES=
<expected number of pages. This value may differ slightly from the actual number>

HELIOS_JOBSIZE=
<expected print job size (in bytes). The stated value is often smaller than the actual size>

Specifies the Acrobat compatibility level of the generated PDF files. There are two values available:

If the compatibility level is set to 4, and the preview queue has a printer or proof profile attached, then this ICC profile will be included in the generated PDF file, and the generated bitmaps use ICC-based color spaces.

If set to TRUE, PrintPreview places a transparency mask on its own page in the PDF output.

If set to TRUE, PrintPreview places a transparency mask in an optional PDF layer so the mask can cross-fade the composite view. Of course this option makes only sense if a composite view is generated at all. Therefore the HELIOS Admin checkbox Include Transparency Mask Layer can only be selected if Include color preview is activated.

Specifies the name of the spot color with which the transparency mask cross-fades the composite view. The spot color can be modified in the Spot Color Editor. That way the color of the transparency mask is defined.

Enables "viewif" to issue a transparency mask, even though the PostScript job or single pages of a job do not contain any transparencies. Thus the generated transparency masks are empty. However, in doing so consistent paging within the PDF document is guaranteed.


PrintPreview UB⁺ User manual

PrintPreview UB+ User manual

4 Preferences

PrintPreview UB⁺ User manual