Best Wide-Format Printer/Plotter for Adobe

Question

Didn't know where else to post this because it pertains to all of Creative Cloud, but my current problem is with Adobe Illustrator.

I am having issues printing out large artwork from Adobe Illustrator to our Wide Format Hewlett-Packard DesignJet Z5400 PostScript. I have tried re-working the artwork, flattening the artwork, saving it as a PDF and using Acrobat to print it, but it's like the Z5400 doesn't understand the file. I print it, the display says it's receiving the print job, goes to showing "Printing", but the print head doesn't move. After about 2 minutes it flashes up for literally an instant some error message, then says "Printed" - nothing prints though.

This DesignJet is deprecated and is no longer in production. Is there ANY other current large format USB-connecting color plotters/large format printers (up to 44-inch rolls) on the market that will connnect by USB wire to a Windows 10 Pro PC that Adobe's software really likes and works best with?

Bobby Henderson · Answer

There are many different models of large format printers. The key thing you need is a good large format RIP application to feed jobs to the printer. The application needs to have an Adobe certified PDF print engine. That's what will allow the art to print properly. In my workplace we use Onyx Thrive to run our latex-based printer and RasterLink Pro to run our flatbed printer. Both have no issues accepting PDF files generated by Illustrator, InDesign or even other non-Adobe graphics applications. There other RIP applications that have the Adobe PDF print engine. Mac users may have to go with Caldera. There are more RIPs on the Windows side.

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