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Frequently Asked Questions - Adobe PageMaker

PageMaker Displays and Prints EPS Graphic in Gray Box or Low Resolution

Issue

Adobe PageMaker 5.0x or later displays an EPS graphic as a gray box or in low resolution. When you print to a PCL or QuickDraw printer from PageMaker 5.0x or later, PageMaker prints the EPS graphic as it appears on-screen.

Symptoms

When you print the original file from which the EPS graphic was created and from the application that created it (e.g., Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop), the application prints the original file to the same printer as expected.

Solutions

Print to a PostScript printer.

OR: Open the EPS graphic in an appropriate application (e.g., open line art EPS graphics in Adobe Illustrator, open bitmap EPS graphics in Adobe Photoshop), export the graphic as a bitmap image (e.g., TIFF, JPEG), then place it into PageMaker. In PageMaker, select the High Resolution Graphics Display option in the Preferences dialog box.

OR: Open the EPS graphic in an appropriate application, then export it by selecting a high-resolution (e.g., 8-bit) screen preview.

OR: If you are using PageMaker 6.5, enable PageMaker to generate the screen preview for the EPS graphic:

  1. In PageMaker 6.5, delete the EPS graphic.
  2. Choose File > Place to replace the EPS graphic.
  3. In the Place Document dialog box, select the EPS graphic, select Show Filter Preferences, then click OK. (Or, after you select the EPS graphic, hold down the Shift key while clicking OK.)
  4. In the EPS Import Filter v2.2 dialog box, select Always Create Preview, select the resolution and color depth you want, then click OK.
NOTE: When creating a screen preview for an EPS graphic, PageMaker does not alter the original EPS graphic. PageMaker stores the screen previews it creates within the publication, causing the file size of your publication to increase.

Additional Information

EPS (Encapsulated PostScript) graphics can contain a screen preview (i.e., a PICT graphic or TIFF image) that represents the PostScript code included in the EPS graphic. Applications use the screen preview to display an EPS graphic on-screen, and non-PostScript printer drivers can use the screen preview when they print an EPS graphic, since they cannot understand PostScript code. If you save an EPS graphic without a screen preview and then place it into a publication, PageMaker 5.0x and later displays a gray box in place of the screen preview. If you save an EPS graphic with a low-resolution screen preview and then place it into a publication, PageMaker displays it using its low-resolution screen preview.

When you print to a PostScript printer, most applications (e.g., PageMaker 6.x and earlier) send the PostScript code within an EPS graphic to the PostScript printer driver. When you print to a non-PostScript (i.e., PCL, QuickDraw) printer, PageMaker sends the screen's display to the printer, so EPS graphics, as well as other objects, print as they appear on-screen. When you print a publication containing a bitmap image (e.g., TIFF, JPEG) to a non-PostScript printer, PageMaker sends bitmap image data optimized for the printer's resolution instead of sending the image's screen display to the printer driver.

If you save an EPS graphic with a high-resolution screen preview, or enable PageMaker 6.5 to generate one, PageMaker displays the imported EPS graphic using this high-resolution screen preview. After you select the High Resolution Graphics Display option in the Preferences dialog box, PageMaker displays images (e.g., TIFF, JPEG) at the highest resolution possible.


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