Very poor performance printing, we had to switch to Adobe

[neeeko_]

We are using PDF Xchange Viewer on our Terminal Server 2008 SP2, on laptops and desktops (XP / Win7).
We have been experiencing very poor performance a few months ago and the latest updates didnt solve anything.

Symptoms when printing a >20 page documents :

A double progressing green bar appears and pages are sent very slowly (sometimes no more than 10 pages a minute...) to the server.
I recently switched back all terminal server users to Adobe Reader X : problem solved.

Did some tests on my Desktop (Win 7 x64 / Xeon W3520, 6Go RAM), same symptoms and same solution : Adobe did the job.

We have bought PDF Xchange Pro licenses and we are very disappointed.

[Stefan - PDF-XChange]

Hello neeeko_,

Could it be that when printing through our Viewer you have the "print as images" option selected? This will create significantly larger (and slower to print) files that need to be sent over your network to the server. Please try with turning this option off and you should see quite some increase in the printing speed.

Also please advise what 'brand and model' of printer you are printing from ?

Best,
Stefan

[neeeko_]

We are using NetWare UniFlow solution to scan documents to PDF files.
When using PDF-A option on UniFlow (Pdf Archive) if we don't tick "print as images" to reprint the scanned documents, we have a total black page...(people sometimes/often reprint what they scanned)

The printers used in our company are CANON Professional Printers/Copiers: irC 4080 and irC 5045

Thanks for the heads up

[Paul - PDF-XChange]

Hi neeeko_,

thanks for the feedback. I'm sorry to hear of your troubles. We will do what we can to fix this.

Can you tell me if this is file specific? Does this happen with any file >20 pages or only certain ones?

When using PDF-A option on UniFlow (Pdf Archive) if we don't tick "print as images" to reprint the scanned documents, we have a total black page...(people sometimes/often reprint what they scanned)

I'm not sure I understand this part of the work flow. Is this 'Print as Images' part of the UniFlow application generating the PDF files or are you printing from PDF-XChange to the Canon printer and if so how does UniFlow fit in here?

If the issue is simply that printing the documents from PDF-XChange to your Canon(s) results in black pages when 'Print as Images' in PDF-XChange is not used and too slow when it is, we may be able to test this here. Can you send us a sample file and the version numbers of the drivers used for the Printers/Copiers: irC 4080 and irC 5045?

I am assuming that you have updated both the Canon drivers to the latest and PDF-XChange to build 201 (current). We would ask that this be done for us to investigate this.

regards

[neeeko_]

Can you tell me if this is file specific? Does this happen with any file >20 pages or only certain ones?

There is not a real logic about the files. It can happen with a 10 page document or with a 50 page document, the sending speed to the printer can be very slow.

I'm not sure I understand this part of the work flow. Is this 'Print as Images' part of the UniFlow application generating the PDF files or are you printing from PDF-XChange to the Canon printer and if so how does UniFlow fit in here?

Sorry for the misunderstanding. We use Uniflow to scan paper docs to PDF-A files. From there we send them by email and sometimes we reprint them. We found out that printing them with the option "print as image" unticked, a black page (not blank, a full black page) would get out of the printer.

If the issue is simply that printing the documents from PDF-XChange to your Canon(s) results in black pages when 'Print as Images' in PDF-XChange is not used and too slow when it is, we may be able to test this here. Can you send us a sample file and the version numbers of the drivers used for the Printers/Copiers: irC 4080 and irC 5045?

Sample file enclosed.
Version numbers of drivers :
irC 4080 : PostScript driver v4.90.0.0 / PCL 5c driver v8.85
irC 5045 : PostScript driver v20.60.0.0 / PCL 5c driver v20.60.0.0

Lemme check the rest.

[Paul - PDF-XChange]

Hi again neeeko_,

thanks for that. We have done some testing her and we do have an issue with the PS printing when it doesn't use 'Print as Images'

Version numbers of drivers :
irC 4080 : PostScript driver v4.90.0.0 / PCL 5c driver v8.85
irC 5045 : PostScript driver v20.60.0.0 / PCL 5c driver v20.60.0.0

I see your printers also have PCL drivers, that should be much better for printing these - can you confirm the behaviour printing to that Canon without using 'Print as Images' but using the PCL driver directly? If I understand the flow of this conversation correctly the issue is specifically with using the PS drivers and that if you use the PCL drivers that it should print OK without delay and the black boxes the PS delivers. Is that right?

[neeeko_]

Hello,

Am back with some semi-good news.
We changed all the printers drivers..from PS to PCL. We got rid of the black pages. We also don't use the "Print as Images" option anymore.
But...sending the job from PDF X-Change to the printer server is still very very slow comparing to Adobe reader (at least 3 or 4 times faster).

Thanks for your feedback.

[Paul - PDF-XChange]

HI neeeko_

we are working on the PCL printers in the coming months and should be able to offer so me improvement here.

hth

[neeeko_]

Good to know. Can't wait for the improvement..

[Stefan - PDF-XChange]