Epson R220 CD label printing in Illustrator/Photoshop in OS X
Over the past 2 weeks, the Epson R220 my company bought has worked intermittently. I called Epson and their technical support said that they would only support the printing of CD labels from their vastly limited and color distorting printing program, Epson Print CD.
Sample File
This PDF has the correct offsets on a US Letter page setup to print directly to the CDs.
The actual offsets are 0.661 in (X) and 0.3621 in (Y) from the left top of the page. That's negative Y axis in Illustrator, by the way.
Instructions
The secret to making the printer work everytime from Illustrator is to reset the paper size in the Print dialog. To do this (and you'll need to do this everytime you print), deselect Size: "Defined by Driver" in the print dialog (File>>Print...) to another setting like "US Letter." Then, close the print dialog. Re-open it and select Printer...>>Printer Settings>>Media Type: CD/DVD from the drop down menu. I recommend saving the Media Type as an OS X printing preset (Printer...>>Presets>>Save).
One one other necessary piece of information. The front CD tray must be open before the file is sent to the printer. Otherwise, the file will just be printed from the regular paper tray on letter size paper.
Color Settings
The color printed will not match those on the screen either (at least in CMYK). The closest Color Setting (Edit>>Color Setting...) that I have seen to the monitor's color is "North American General Purpose 2." I believe this is the default for Illustrator CS2 on install.
I hope this helps. It took over five hours to narrow this down. Thanks a lot, Epson. . .
NOTE: The above might work with the Epson R330, but since I do not own a R330, I cannot test this.
--Stephen M. James
www.smjdesign.com
Sample File
This PDF has the correct offsets on a US Letter page setup to print directly to the CDs.
The actual offsets are 0.661 in (X) and 0.3621 in (Y) from the left top of the page. That's negative Y axis in Illustrator, by the way.
Instructions
The secret to making the printer work everytime from Illustrator is to reset the paper size in the Print dialog. To do this (and you'll need to do this everytime you print), deselect Size: "Defined by Driver" in the print dialog (File>>Print...) to another setting like "US Letter." Then, close the print dialog. Re-open it and select Printer...>>Printer Settings>>Media Type: CD/DVD from the drop down menu. I recommend saving the Media Type as an OS X printing preset (Printer...>>Presets>>Save).
One one other necessary piece of information. The front CD tray must be open before the file is sent to the printer. Otherwise, the file will just be printed from the regular paper tray on letter size paper.
Color Settings
The color printed will not match those on the screen either (at least in CMYK). The closest Color Setting (Edit>>Color Setting...) that I have seen to the monitor's color is "North American General Purpose 2." I believe this is the default for Illustrator CS2 on install.
I hope this helps. It took over five hours to narrow this down. Thanks a lot, Epson. . .
NOTE: The above might work with the Epson R330, but since I do not own a R330, I cannot test this.
--Stephen M. James
www.smjdesign.com
posted by Stephen M. James at 2/06/2006 07:18:00 PM
14 Comments:
This saved me a lot of time. I checked the details for european settings and I used PhotoShop in stead of Illustrator.
Using A4 paper, the offsets in millimeters are:
- 12 mm from the left
- 4 mm from the top
Hence your centerpoint would be 72mm, 64mm (x,y).
Thanks for the tips...
I can't understand why...but the CD/DVD options are greyed out in illustrator CS. They're available in all other applications, just not in CS. And it looks like in the printer settings dialog, it always reverts to SHEET FEEDER.
gilzoo,
Yeah, that doesn't sound like there's an easy explanation. I have CS2 here are work and it's on a Mac. I have CS at home on a PC, but not the printer to test it on. I know that the Printer setting dialogs are different between the two OSes.
If you figure out, please post.
--Stephen
For Illustrator CS, I found that the solution is to edit in Illustrator, but print from Acrobat. Funky. But it works.
-B...
But don't forget to set the page size and printer in Acrobat Reader's Page Setup. And set Page Scaling to none in the Print dialog box.
-B...
Bruce,
I have had color shifts in CMYK documents from Illustrator or InDesign to Acrobat Reader.
--Stephen
Thanks for this information...good to know I'm not the only one cussing at my printer! Turns out, I found another screwy error that I fixed. I still couldn't get Illustrator to print the document, but when I saved it as a PDF, opened in Preview and printed, it seemed to work just fine. Also, the printer wants you to align the triangles, but I found that the only way the printer will "accept" the tray is if you push it in as far as it goes. And shockingly, everything is aligned correctly.
Whoa, just realized this is Stephen James. This is Jason Parmer. How goes it sir?
I am on a mac book pro using C2s and an epson r220 and have followed your comments along.
However when I press print the job is sent to print and then nothing happens?
I have about three strands of hair left on my head.
Please help...
David,
I have had this printer be sent documents and they disappear. If this is the problem, I suggest opening the Printer Setup Utility (Spotlight it) and open the printer dialog. If every time you print a document, it adds it to the queue at the bottom and the Resume and Hold swap on and off, then it is not related to printing CDs. I have fixed the problem prior problem by deleting everything in the queue and restarting the printing.
Make sure that you are printing what you want to, by printing to a PDF (Save as PDF) in the Print dialog.
Hi Stephen
Thanks for your reply.
I have tried so many variations on this and can still not get it to print.
The printer has no problem printing to A4 paper tho.
I was wondering if you know of a place where I could download a copy of Epson Print CD 1.4 as this has worked in the past but I have lost it.
Thanks
David
You might try this link to the Russian Epson Support Download page:
http://support.epson.ru/upload/drivertypes/000781/PrintCD_15aE.zip
I got the link of a random forum, so I'm cautious in posting it. It appears to be from Epson though.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Post a Comment
<< Home