Supplementary English-Only Training Materials
Note: These materials are offered only in English as supplementary examples for a deeper dive into Fiery LLC products.

Multi-page Documents

There are only two file formats supported for multiple page documents, PostScript files (.ps), and PDF.

Note: EPS files are not the same as PostScript files and do not support multiple pages.

Multiple page files can be used for several reasons:

  • Printing film separations in FilmMaker
  • Multiple signs (for printing or print and cut)
  • Front and Back sides for a T-shirt
  • ADA signage
  • Double sided signs

Multiple Page PDF files

PDF is a much better format for multiple page documents, the files sizes are normally smaller, and PDFs support a range of features that PostScript files don’t, such as transparency and different page sizes for each page.

We provide plugins for Corel, Illustrator, and Photoshop, which send graphics to the RIP as PDFs and this is the recommended format when printing to the RIP for all cases (apart from printing separations in FilmMaker).

Any time you use File > Print using a driver installed in devices and printers, you will be creating a PostScript file; best practice is to only use this for FilmMaker and when selecting the separations option in the application. For everything else we recommend PDF.

Multiple Page RIP features

There are several options on how multiple page documents will be handled in the RIP.

Preview multiple page jobs as an overlay

 

Page Overlay on

In Queue Properties > Layout Manager is the option “Preview multiple page jobs as an overlay (all pages overlap)”.

With page overlay enabled you will only have a single page view for the document in the VPM preview.

You can preview each page using the drop-down page selection from the smart bar.

Note: If you RIP only and View Raw Data you can view each page separately in the view raw data from a drop down menu at the top.

Note: In Page Overlay mode it's not possible to nest pages.

 

Page Overlay off

When Page Overlay is disabled, all the pages will be displayed separately.

You still have the Pages button that can be used to select which pages will be printed.

With Page Overlay off, you can also nest all the pages.

Summary

Using Page Overlay on or off is a matter of preference, but for large format/roll feed media, the page overlay off is the typical choice as it allows for nesting smaller jobs.

For smaller format machines (Letter/A4, 11x17/A3) Page Overlay may be preferable as the VPM view is less cluttered. But it is down to personal preference.

 

Selecting pages to print

The Pages button (in the SmartBar and in the right click context menu) will allow you to enable and disable which pages you wish to print.

In Tools > Options is an option to select the pages dialog on import.

When this is selected you will be prompted with the pages dialog every time you import a multiple page job.

 

Splitting multiple page files

Multiple page documents are linked to a single job entry, if you re-size one of the pages, you re-size them all (which can be an advantage when you want all the pages to match), but you may have a multiple page job and want to print the pages at different sizes, To do this, you need to split the original file into separate files for each page.

Right click on the jobs on select the Split Pages option.

This will make each page a separate job and you can then apply separate transformations (such as sizing and rotation) to each page individually.

 

Automatically splitting PDF files

In Tools > Options, you can configure the RIP to always split all multiple page PDF files.

When this is selected all PDF files will be split and import as a separate job for each page (this only works for PDF files and not PostScript files).

Note: Multiple page PDF files that have different page sizes will always be split into separate PDF documents and import as separate jobs. The RIP detects if a PDF has multiple pages and if all the pages are not the same size, then the RIP will create a separate PDF for each page and import these separately.

 

Using Multiple Page documents for Layers

In the Layer profile tab is a check box titled Use Multiple Page document as Layers.

This is a feature designed for working with UV printers and when this feature is enabled the “Always split multiple page PDF files into separate PDF files” in Tools > Options should be disabled.

This feature changes the concept of the way multiple pages are used and instead of each page being a separate print job the pages are used for separate passes to create a single print.

When Use multipage document as layers is enabled you can select which page in the document is to be used on each layer.

A simple example is a double-sided sign with Enter on one side and Exit on the other from a 2 page PDF file.

  • Page1 = Enter sign

  • Page2 = Exit sign

  • You would print 3 layers (passes)

  • 1st Layer you print page 1 Enter sign

  • 2nd Layer you print an opaque white

  • 3rd Layer you print Page 2 Exit sign

 

Separations and multiple page support

 

InRIP separations off

The main use of multiple page PostScript files are in FilmMaker, when you print from PhotoShop, Illustrator and CorelDraw and select separations, the file format sent to FilmMaker is a multiple page postscript file where each page is a separated color plane.

Selecting separations will create a multiple page PostScript file with each page a separate color plane (i.e., page1 = Cyan, Page2 = Magenta, Page3 = Yellow, Page4 = Magenta).

As each page needs to be printed at the same size, you do not want to split these, so that any transformation will be performed the same on all pages.

 

InRIP Separations on

When Using InRIP separations and multiple page documents then can have a lot of separations for a single job. If the job was 10 pages, each page will be split into its CMYK components, which would give you 40 different output pages. This would be a lot to manage and can cause some confusion (if for example you wanted to re-print one of the pages or a separation from a single page).

It is recommended when using InRIP separations and multiple page PDFs that you enable the Always split multiple page PDF files into separate PDF files enabled in Tools > Options. This way each page is a separate entry and it's easier to select specific separations from specific pages.

Note: If you are using InRIP separations and multiple pages and need to do some form of scaling or other transformation and want to automate this so it gets applied to every page, use the template feature and slots.

Apparel

In most cases when printing apparel each page is a separate job and even when you have a two-page PDF file for the front and back of a garment, it’s easier to treat them as separate jobs with page overlay disabled and Always split multiple page PDF files into separate PDF files enabled in Tools > Options.

This way each print is a separate entry and can be easily located, selected and when required separate settings applied as required.

UV Printers

There are lots of ways you can use multiple page documents when UV printing, you may have a multiple page document that has a phone case cover on each page and be printing onto templates setup for phone cases (see Apparel).

But you can also use multiple page documents to create more sophisticated graphics where you want to use different pages for different layers of output such as double-sided signs and ADA.

To use different pages for different layers, create a new print mode and enable the Use multiple page document as layers.

Double sided sign

On one side you want

ENTER

and on the other side

EXIT

You can setup a print mode that would print this as a single job.

Create a PDF document with two pages in your design application (such as SignLab), on page 1 have the word ENTER and on page 2 the word EXIT (see example).

To print a doubled sided sign, you will need to create a print mode of 3 layers and the Use multiple page documents as layers enabled.

  • Layer 1 = Color layer (using horizontal mirror)

  • Layer 2 = White layer (using Flood feature enabled and CMYK channels disabled)

  • Layer 3 = Color layer

Make sure that Always split multiple page PDF files into separate PDF files is disabled.

Select the double-sided print mode you have created in your queue.

Note: It is recommended to set up a separate queue for a custom workflow such as this.

Add your two-page PDF file and go to the job properties, in layer profile on the 1st color layer, make sure page 1 is selected, and on the 2nd color layer page 2 is selected.

Note: Click Create Print Mode if you want to save this page configuration and create a new print mode with the page already selected if you have multiple double-sided signs to create.

 

Two-sided clear acrylic

Another is to print two different images on the front and back of a clear piece of Acrylic.

For an example such as this you would want a background image on one page and second image on the front. To print this you would want four layers and the Use multiple page documents as layers enabled.

  • Layer 1 = Will be the color layer of page 1.

  • Layer 2 = White layer (using Flood feature enabled and CMYK channels disabled), this will be the last layer for the back of the acrylic. In the Layer profile enable the prompt for Pause and this will allow the operator to turn the acrylic over so that page 2 can be printed on the other side.

  • Layer 3 = In Processing Options enable the White Underbase, in Layer Profile disable CMYK (so just the white prints) and in the pages select page 2 so the underbase is created for page 2 (when the job has been added).

  • Layer 4 = Print just CMYK of Page 2.

 

ADA Signage with background

Some ADA signage is printed with a background image, using the Use multiple page documents as layers feature we can do this from a single PDF file.

Page 1 would be the background image and Page 2 would be the ADA sign/Braille.

The number of layers used would depend on how to print the raised areas for the ADA and Braille images, but here's a rough guide.

  • Layer 1 = Prints the Page 1 which your background image.

  • Layer 2 = Would print the build-up (texture) for the braille (disabling and color data)

  • Layer 3 = Would print the color pass for the raised ADA and Braille.