Great news! Read me!

[shasta]

(I don't work for kinkos)

For all of you that wish more plotting services handled VW documents or don't want to invest in your own printer, Kinkos has a file-prep tool that I just used called KFP that can be downloaded on their site (www.kinkos.com) on the front page(lower-right corner). Not only can you print any document (be sure to select paper size in print setup!) including color, but the files are smaller than whole VW files. After installing, choose 'print' in VW, setup the print options, view the preview image and choose 'save.' The file can then be e-mailed to your local Kinkos using KinkoNet from the kinkos.com page. There is no need for them to have the VW viewer.

[Bill]

I downloaded the file-prep tool yesterday. Everything worked fine and the printed output was very good.

After installing it I did the following in VectorWorks (v8.5 with windows 2000):

File, Print Setup

• Printer name: Kinko's File Prep Tool
• Paper size: Postscript custome page size
• clicked on Printer Properties button
• in Layout tab clicked on Advanced
• in the Kinko's File Prep Tool Advanced Options clicked on Edit custom page size
• in Postscript Custom Page Size Definition I set:
  
• width = 24
• height = 36
• Paper feed direction = short edge first ( couldn't get other variations to work)

[*]backing up to the Layout tab clicked on Landscape[*]backing up toe the Print Setup window, clicked on Landscape

Page, Set Print Area

• set Printable Area Size to One Page

Everything looked fine in VectorWorks.

When you print to the Kinko's File Prep Tool it automatically opens up its viewer. Everything looked fine there so I saved the results. My 2mb drawing file resulted in an 84k Kinko's .kdf file which I copied to a diskette and took to Kinko's.

The only odd thing is that the drawing did come out short edge first which meant that it was printed on a 3' x 3' piece of paper and therefore wasting a 1' x 3' strip. Logically I want to have the feed direction be long edge first but the I couldn't seem to get that to look good in VW and the KFP tool viewer. I'll have to do some more experimenting.

I highly recommend using Kinko's.

[ErichR]

Too bad it's not Mac-friendly.

[Kevin]

My local blueprinter receives my VW files by Adobe Acrobat, PDF. I print to PDF from VW and then email the file to them. It works fine. I would assume that Kinkos or any other repro house should be able to print a PDF. This is all done on a Mac.