Nisus 6 and Printers who use it

Nisus Thesaurus, Nisus Writer Classic– this is the place for all other Nisus products.
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gregggibson
Posts: 6
Joined: 2008-11-08 13:12:45

Nisus 6 and Printers who use it

Post by gregggibson »

Hi. Does anybody know of some printers (people not machines) who can print directly from Nisus 6 without going through PDF?

I have to use special fonts, and PDFWriter's embedded fonts are inadequate, and besides the graphics quality is very poor. Distiller is even worse - it just gives gibbersih when you try to convert a Nisus 6 document to PDF. Needless to say, I am even less eager to deal with converting to Word, and then to PDF.

I really am perfectly happy with Nisus 6 for desktop publishing - even its color output is quite nice so far as I can tell - and don't want to have to deal with PDF and all its quirks.

Thanks for any info,
Gregg
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Hamid
Posts: 777
Joined: 2007-01-17 03:25:42

Re: Nisus 6 and Printers who use it

Post by Hamid »

It is possible to create a PostScript file from within Nisus Writer Classic with all the fonts embedded. This can be opened and saved as PDF in any app which reads PostScript files, like Preview or Acrobat.
With your Nisus Writer Classic file open, activate Print in the normal way (Command-p) which presents the Print dialog.
From the 'Destination' popup select 'File' (instead of 'Printer').
In the popup which begins with 'General' after all your settings correspond to what you want, select 'Save as File'. This will open up other options.
From the 'Format' popup select 'PostScript Job'.
Finally in 'Font Inclusion' popup select 'All', this is particularly important in your case. Then press Save. This will prompt you to save your filename.ps wherever you want.
When you click on 'Save' (or press Return or Enter), a PostScript file called filename.ps will be created in the location specified. When you double-click on this file, it will be converted to pdf and open in, for example, Preview.
Save the file from Preview. It will be saved as filename.pdf.
Last edited by Hamid on 2008-11-09 01:13:59, edited 1 time in total.
gregggibson
Posts: 6
Joined: 2008-11-08 13:12:45

Re: Nisus 6 and Printers who use it

Post by gregggibson »

Thanks so very much for this valuable information. I will try it and maybe PDF will serve well enough after all. Thanks again, Gregg
gregggibson
Posts: 6
Joined: 2008-11-08 13:12:45

Re: Nisus 6 and Printers who use it

Post by gregggibson »

I tried this, and it worked like a charm. I would like to add a few notes for the benefit of others who need to convert classic Nisus files to PDF format, and embed their desired fonts so the PDF file will look exactly like the Nisus file. Just to recap, the process involves converting the Nisus file to a Postscript file via the Print function, and then converting the Postscript file to a PDF file.

1. I used a sample Nisus file of 800k. The Postscript file produced was huge - about 57 MB. Since my book has over 300 illustrations its final size will be about 70 MB, so looks like it will be necessary to transfer it to Postscript in separate files of perhaps 50 pages each, and then recombine the PDF files (see Acrobat manual for details).

2. Of course, you have to have a postscript printer selected in the Chooser in order to get the necessary dialogue boxes to make all this work. I had previously tried the PDFWriter which comes with Acrobat, but although it claims to be able to embed fonts, it wouldn’t embed mine, although I created them in Fontographer, and they work fine elsewhere.

3. I used a Powermac 6500 running system 8.6, Nisus 6 and Adobe Distiller 4. After producing the .ps (postscript file) I just dragged it onto Adobe Distiller, which I had previously tweaked to my specs. (see next section). Distiller has to be installed via the Acrobat installer to work properly.

4. In Adobe Distiller the Settings menu and Font Locations submenu needs to have your desired fonts selected. The Add button permits you to add needed fonts from your System Folder:Fonts folder.

Also in Distiller, the Settings menu and Job Options submenu permits you to control the appearance of the PDF file to be produced from the .ps (postscript file). Of particular interest to me was the Fonts subsubmenu, where the Embed All Fonts box needs to be checked.

5. There are at least two advantages to converting Nisus to PDF. First, because many more printers can use PDF than Nisus, and second, one can embed fonts in PDF, ensuring that your document looks exactly as intended. Asking a printer to add your fonts to his system is a somewhat risky and uncertain affair. I don’t know whether the latest Nisus can embed fonts. This would certainly be a useful new feature for the program. I understand that the latest Nisus can convert directly to PDF, presumably permitting embedded fonts in PDF.

6. There is however an advantage to finding a printer who can print directly from Nisus. Margins and other subtle formatting differences between Nisus and PDF formats are not an issue, and to my eyes at least Nisus gives somewhat better, cleaner printouts than Acrobat. You would think that Nisus would have become more popular with printers. For the typical self-published book with simply inserted illustrations it is ideal.
gregggibson
Posts: 6
Joined: 2008-11-08 13:12:45

Re: Nisus 6 and Printers who use it

Post by gregggibson »

I tried this, and it worked like a charm. I would like to add a few notes for the benefit of others who need to convert classic Nisus files to PDF format, and embed their desired fonts so the PDF file will look exactly like the Nisus file. Just to recap, the process involves converting the Nisus file to a Postscript file via the Print function, and then converting the Postscript file to a PDF file.

1. I used a sample Nisus file of 800k. The Postscript file produced was huge - about 57 MB. Since my book has over 300 illustrations its final size will be about 70 MB, so looks like it will be necessary to transfer it to Postscript in separate files of perhaps 50 pages each, and then recombine the PDF files (see Acrobat manual for details).

2. Of course, you have to have a postscript printer selected in the Chooser in order to get the necessary dialogue boxes to make all this work. I had previously tried the PDFWriter which comes with Acrobat, but although it claims to be able to embed fonts, it wouldn’t embed mine, although I created them in Fontographer, and they work fine elsewhere.

(continued on next post)
gregggibson
Posts: 6
Joined: 2008-11-08 13:12:45

Re: Nisus 6 and Printers who use it

Post by gregggibson »

3. I used a Powermac 6500 running system 8.6, Nisus 6 and Adobe Distiller 4. After producing the .ps (postscript file) I just dragged it onto Adobe Distiller, which I had previously tweaked to my specs. (see next section). Distiller has to be installed via the Acrobat installer to work properly.

4. In Adobe Distiller the Settings menu and Font Locations submenu needs to have your desired fonts selected. The Add button permits you to add needed fonts from your System Folder:Fonts folder.

Also in Distiller, the Settings menu and Job Options submenu permits you to control the appearance of the PDF file to be produced from the .ps (postscript file). Of particular interest to me was the Fonts subsubmenu, where the Embed All Fonts box needs to be checked.
gregggibson
Posts: 6
Joined: 2008-11-08 13:12:45

Re: Nisus 6 and Printers who use it

Post by gregggibson »

5. There are at least two advantages to converting Nisus to PDF. First, because many more printers can use PDF than Nisus, and second, one can embed fonts in PDF, ensuring that your document looks exactly as intended. Asking a printer to add your fonts to his system is a somewhat risky and uncertain affair. I don’t know whether the latest Nisus can embed fonts. This would certainly be a useful new feature for the program. I understand that the latest Nisus can convert directly to PDF, presumably permitting embedded fonts in PDF.

6. There is however an advantage to finding a printer who can print directly from Nisus. Margins and other subtle formatting differences between Nisus and PDF formats are not an issue, and to my eyes at least Nisus gives somewhat better, cleaner printouts than Acrobat. You would think that Nisus would have become more popular with printers. For the typical self-published book with simply inserted illustrations it is ideal.

Again, thanks to Hamid for his very clear and easy to follow instructions.
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