Xerox 6204 and Mac

[TDabney]

Hi -
I've got a Xerox 6204 on trial - just delivered today. The techs that helped set it up were not Mac friendly. The only way I've been able to get anything to come out of it is running a PLT file through Plotflow. I'm not able to print anything (can't seem to set it up as a printer) and can't print or plot directly from ArchiCAD. I wasn't able to get much in the way of Mac drivers from the Xerox website.

I'm wondering if I'm fighting a losing battle here. Does anyone out there run a Xerox 6204 successfully on a Mac network?

My signature is probably out of date as I haven't posted here in a long while. I have a 2.4 Intel Core 2 Duo Powerbook w/OS 10.5.2; ArchiCAD 11 and am trying to get the Xerox 6204 working well.

An option that I have is to load up XP - but I'd like to avoid that if possible of course. I'd be a bummer to have to fire that up every time I needed a print.

Thanks for the help,
Tom

[Thomas Holm]

What you need to do is to get it working as a system printer. Once you've printed a page with an Hello! from Textedit, you'll be able to print whatever you like from Archicad too.

If there are no specific Mac OSX print drivers, you'll need to install a true Postscript option. This will allow you to print from OSX using a generic postscript driver with a printer-specific PPD file. To get full capabilities you might have to add the "freeflow" (or whatever) specialized Postscript 3 RIP (raster image processor). That is probably expensive but should let you print full quality whatever you like. Do avoid "emulated" postscript though, only true Adobe will work in all situations.

Still, if they have no Mac-specific drivers, you might not be able to utilize the machine's other options, like scanning etc. So it doesn't look too good if you ask me.

Xerox support should be able to help you. They have other machines that work fine with macs, and they also have Mac-aware people!

[TDabney]

Thomas -
Thanks for the response. I can add a postscript option to the printer (for extra $$ of course). I'm not sure of the ultimate capability though. After sleeping on it, I'm wondering if just swallowing a license of XP is the path of least resistance. I'm fairly certain, after listening to the techs that set it up, that it has a bunch of worthwhile software that I will never have access to from OS X. It seems silly to pay rent on a $15,000+ machine that I can't use to it's full potential.

I'm off to spend my day on the phone, on hold, w/tech support - Joy!

Thanks again,
Tom

[Thomas Holm]

TDabney wrote:
...I'm wondering if just swallowing a license of XP is the path of least resistance...

Well, for me having to use Windows isn't worth it. I'd go a long way to get a Mac-compatible printer if this isn't the one. To introduce Windows is just asking for trouble. And multiplying your support costs.

We have a KonicaMinolta C352printer to which we added a very expensive Fiery RIP to get true Postscript and full Mac support. But at least they have OSX software for all options of the machine. Now it works excellently, and we can customize and calibrate and scan all day if we like, and still use Leopard's excellent print and pdf support in Archicacd (it doesn't print bigger than A3 / 11"x17" though).

it surprises me that your Xerox doesn't have mac options. They have excellent Mac support for their publishing industry products.

[Erich]

I took a quick look at the xerox site and it appears that with this printer and a Mac you are out of luck...

http://www.support.xerox.com/go/results.asp?Xtype=download&prodID=WF_6204&Xlang=en_US&Xcntry=USA&pro...

[Thomas Holm]

Erich wrote:
I took a quick look at the xerox site..

I did that too. I think with the postscript option, you should be able to print from a Mac anyway. The PPD files are cross-platform.

But without Mac drivers, no scanning.

If there are no Mac-compatible equivalents in the market, I guess buying a cheap Windows machine to handle the scanning would cut it. But it smells trouble...

[Anonymous]

I found the trick....

Use this driver: XFA_6204.PPD

You have to make sure you set the queue as: raw

Hope that helps. Still trying to learn how to scan myself.

[Anonymous]

Hey There,

Looking to setup a new Mac for a client that has a Xerox 6204. I got the scanning utility to work but can not find a driver for plotting. Is that file you reference above still available somewhere?

Thanks for any help anyone can give...

Brian