Printing Color Transparencies

On our own EPSON Stylus 900

* use only inkjet-compatible transparencies

here's more info on the subject

On the Apple Color LaserWriter that's upstairs on the guru room

Warning: This printer doesn't usually work

1. Get special Apple transparency sheets from Jeanne. These have a white strip of paper with "Apple" written on it, at one end. OTHER KINDS OF TRANSPARENCIES WILL NOT WORK.

2. Make sure that the manual-feed tray on the Color Laser Writer is open. This is the lower tray, on the right side. Make sure that the extension on the tray is pulled all the way out. Put the transparency into the tray, with the paper strip facing inwards. (I don't know whether it matters which side is up, but I've had success with the paper side up.)

3. Sit down at the Mac on the table next to the Color Laser Writer. Use the Fetch program to ftp your image file from your account.

4. Launch Netscape on the Mac, and use the Open File menu selection (under the File menu) to open the image file. If you can't see the image (i.e., Netscape can't display it), game over. Otherwise, select the Print item from the File menu, and you'll get a little dialog box. For "Destination:", choose File, and for "Paper Source:", choose Manual Feed. Click Okay and note the name and location of the file you've saved (easiest to save it to the desktop).

5. Finally, drag-and-drop the file you've saved, onto the Drop*PS icon. This should give you a color transparency in a minute or so.

NOTE: Theoretically, you should be able to print transparencies of PostScript files directly, by just putting the transparency into the tray and issuing the command lpr -Pclw in Unix. But I've never been able to do this successfully. So your safest best is to go through Netscape or some other Mac program that allows you to save PostScript files with the manual-feed command included automatically.