(v13) Examples of use

This page applies to Harlequin v13.1r0 and later; both Harlequin Core and Harlequin MultiRIP.

The following examples show the necessary settings to handle some common situations.

The intention of these parameters is to allow flexibility in configuring the best response from the RIP to output from a certain application. We recommend that you take advantage of this flexibility by making settings to match particular jobs or sources of jobs. The possible mechanisms include using control PostScript code generated by a plugin, a page feature, or a PPD (or PDF). It is also possible to make settings when the RIP starts up, but this is less flexible.

Applications may draw their own crop marks, color bars, or register marks in ways that lead to “blank” separations, even when using these keys. To avoid this problem but retain equivalent marks, disable such features in the application and use the Crop Marks page feature, or some variation on it, to accomplish the same thing. These page features draw marks in the BeginPage or EndPage procedures where they can be ignored efficiently, using the similarly named keys in the Ignore dictionary.

When Simple Imposition is being used, the Print option must be set to Yes if you wish to see color patches on either the proofing or the plate colorbars. Using the Not Blank option will omit color patches for that color.

Dynamically remove and add separations in a multi-page job

If all colorants encountered in a Separation or DeviceN color space should be produced, set the Add key in SeparationDetails to true.

            <<
              /SeparationDetails <<
                /Add true
                /Remove true
              >>
            >> setpagedevice

These settings remove spot color separations after each page as well as add them where required. This stops a spot color on a particular page producing a blank separation on all following pages.

When the /Add key in /SeparationDetails is set to true, the RIP automatically turns off HVD (Harlequin VariData) Internal Mode, as this is incompatible with dynamic spots (regardless of whether outputting to separations or in composite mode).

Output only non-blank separations

            <<
              /SeparationDetails <<
                /Omit <<
                  /Monochrome false
                  /Separations false
                  /Process true
                  /Spot true
                >>
              >>
            >> setpagedevice

These settings output relevant separations as opposed to strictly blank ones, because the unshown defaults ignore marks likely to be page ornamentation. Relevant separations have non-blank page content.

You can add the line /ExtraSpot true to omit dynamically added separations: in the GUI RIP, these separations are described as (Other colors in job) in the Edit Style dialog box for the separation style. These separations are likely to be non-blank so this added line may not be necessary.

Another likely setting (for all versions of the RIP) is to use all the Omit options, which by using default settings can be done as concisely as this:

            <<
              /SeparationDetails <<
                /Omit <<
                >>
              >>
            >> setpagedevice

Prevent unintentional auto-separation

These settings limit output to the supplied monochrome or pre-separated pages if they are sent mistakenly to an input configured to auto-separate.

            <<
              /SeparationDetails <<
                /Omit <<
                  /Monochrome true
                  /Separations true
                  /Process false
                  /Spot false
                >>
              >>
            >> setpagedevice

Omit ignores objects painted in the EraseColor procedure when determining whether a separation is blank or not. The page background is painted using the EraseColor; if this is configured to be non-white, using Omit may result in the output having an unexpected background color. Setting the EraseColor to non-white is common when color management is used; for details regarding why this is done see (v13) Simple emulation of one device on another.

EraseColor is subject to Color Management input color interception, which means that it may mark separations that are not explicitly listed in the color definition. It is not recommended that Omit is turned on if you are using an EraseColor that is significantly different from white. When using the RelativeColorimetric rendering intent the EraseColor is probably  sufficiently close to 0 that using Omit is acceptable. If using AbsoluteColorimetric it is much more likely that using Omit with EraseColor can change the background color of the page, in which case the use of Omit is not recommended. For more information see EraseColor in the page device.

The use of Omit with a non-white erase color, (typically resulting from the use of a non-null EraseColor with Color Management and possibly an AbsoluteColorimetric rendering intent) is not supported when Harlequin VariData is used in external eHVD mode.

Abort a job unsuitable for separation

            <<
              /SeparationDetails <<
                /Abort true
              >>
            >> setpagedevice

These settings reject everything except composite jobs. While this is an extreme reaction, it may be appropriate when the submitted jobs come from many different sources because it allows inspection of the rejected jobs to assess the need for modification before resubmission.