Quote Originally Posted by irneb View Post
Yes, we did something similar (at least to begin with), not PDF but either PS or HPGL2(PRN) files created by some HP Plotter driver which we then save into a shared folder on the server (at the time we used a Slackware server so the Win NT4 RIP machine could still link to it, once we "upgraded" to a Win 2008 server that was out of the question also).

But even that scenario isn't possible to automate. For some reason MS decided that setting a printer driver to save to file means the files are only on local discs, not network shares, and the user access rights are only the administrators. Which in turn meant each PC had a "temp-plot" folder, each user had to be given admin rights (big whoop MS ... way to force users to screw up security), and have a custom program constantly run in the background to check if the folder contained anything so it would copy it off into the shared folder.

In the end it got so screwed up that the company just bought the damned "new" plotter ... it wasn't faster / better / more robust than the old one, to the contrary, it was more expensive on running costs, was about 20% slower, didn't give as great black and grey shades, constantly got stuck as its paper rolls were incredibly finicky about being installed precisely to the half-millimetre, only had a large format scanner built in (on top so you couldn't print while scanning), etc. etc. Basically paid through the nose to be much worse off than before, just because the RIP server ran on an old Windows which didn't communicate with the new Windows on the workstations.
Wow that is bad. I have thrown away some lemons but got value from the machines. The skew on wide format is horrible problems we mainly print on 120 GSM or heavier paper and that loads quite nicely but is big bucks. We don't have a wide format scanner the printer with the scanner gave us test prints that wouldn't dry so that took care of getting a scanner.