Ricoh Aficio MP 3350 will not produce postscript output from Windows 10

[johnwayne]

It's a Ricoh Aficio MP 3350 with the postscript SD card installed, connected to LAN with a static IP. My laptop with Windows 7 booted, can print postscript halftones perfectly. When I boot that same laptop with Windows 10 - using the exact PS printer driver that was copied from Windows 7 - the printer will not print a test page, but it will print from coreldraw, but it does not create the halftone postscript output as expected. Everything works perfectly from Win 7. Everything is identical in Win 10 - and it will not produce halftones from coreldraw. Using the 'Ricoh PS UniversalDriver V4.22' as that is a known halftone producing driver under Win 7. The Ricoh site does have V4.23 out - but my Win 10 tests of it would cause the printer's data in light to stay solid with no other activity (for 30 minutes, thereafter I reset the job, was just attempting a test page). Additionally the V4.23 PS driver would corrupt the V4.23 PCL driver under Win 10 because Ricoh used the same version numbers. I do install the PCL and the PS drivers - so that Windows can print "normal" with one printer/driver and print halftones with another. Everything works great in Win 7. I need to be able to produce postscript output from Windows 10 to this machine. Please Advise. I have already tried every other older driver for Win 10 and Win 7 under Win 10, with manually force deleting the drivers and restarting between attempts using pnputil in an admin cmd prompt. It's not a laptop issue, not a network issue, not a printer mechanical issue, it's Windows 10 vs. the known-working postscript driver.

[keithxxiii]

Re: Ricoh Aficio MP 3350 will not produce postscript output from Windows 10

Hi,

I'm guessing the drivers you mentioned were universal PS drivers from Ricoh.
I would suggest installing the correct one.

http://support.ricoh.com/bb/pub_e/dr_ut_e/0001282/0001282581/V600/r72690en.exe

Support for windows 10 was introduced with this version.

[johnwayne]

Re: Ricoh Aficio MP 3350 will not produce postscript output from Windows 10

Hi,

I'm guessing the drivers you mentioned were universal PS drivers from Ricoh.
I would suggest installing the correct one.

http://support.ricoh.com/bb/pub_e/dr_ut_e/0001282/0001282581/V600/r72690en.exe

Support for windows 10 was introduced with this version.

thanks for that info, i tried that file, and chose the 3350 (not the 3350B, as my unit is a D020-17) and I can print a test page and print 'normal' output, however postscript halftone output is not produced when intended. Attached is the test page. Do you know is there some obscure setting in the Windows 10 driver so that postscript gets produced as halftones? the print job from coreldraw IS set properly to produce halftones.

[Brianneoe]

Re: Ricoh Aficio MP 3350 will not produce postscript output from Windows 10

I don't know if this will help but you can try this. In the Printing Preference tab go to Advance. Change Dithering setting from "Auto" to "User Setting"
Im using the non universal driver. This setting made it possible to change the dot size and shape in Illustrator when I needed to do a color separation output.

Good luck

[johnwayne]

Re: Ricoh Aficio MP 3350 will not produce postscript output from Windows 10

I don't know if this will help but you can try this. In the Printing Preference tab go to Advance. Change Dithering setting from "Auto" to "User Setting"
Im using the non universal driver. This setting made it possible to change the dot size and shape in Illustrator when I needed to do a color separation output.

Good luck

You are EXACTLY right! I had just found and tested this myself. In Windows 10, dithering defaults to 'auto' which produces grayscale instead of halftone. Changed it to 'user setting' and now I have halftones. That's 2 days of my life that I wont get back - however a huge thank you to the commenters here. hopefully others will find this post about this poorly documented setting and avoid the headache I had. It's just odd that either dithering didnt default to auto in windows 7, or i happened to just dumb-luck adjust that setting from the get-go in Win 7 without realizing it.

[Brianneoe]

Re: Ricoh Aficio MP 3350 will not produce postscript output from Windows 10

All good Duke, I wasn't too sure it would help but I'm glad it did

[slimslob]

Re: Ricoh Aficio MP 3350 will not produce postscript output from Windows 10

Additionally the V4.23 PS driver would corrupt the V4.23 PCL driver under Win 10 because Ricoh used the same version numbers.

The only Drivers that have that version are the "Drivers for Universal Print". There is one place and only one place universal print drivers should be used. They were developed for use with pooled printers that are not the same model. Print pooling requires all printer in the pool use the same driver.

[johnwayne]

Re: Ricoh Aficio MP 3350 will not produce postscript output from Windows 10

The only Drivers that have that version are the "Drivers for Universal Print". There is one place and only one place universal print drivers should be used. They were developed for use with pooled printers that are not the same model. Print pooling requires all printer in the pool use the same driver.

thanks for that info, hadnt heard that before.

[KenB]

Re: Ricoh Aficio MP 3350 will not produce postscript output from Windows 10

The only Drivers that have that version are the "Drivers for Universal Print". There is one place and only one place universal print drivers should be used. They were developed for use with pooled printers that are not the same model. Print pooling requires all printer in the pool use the same driver.

The universal drivers also get deployed when there are pooled printing apps in place, such as Streamline, Equitrac, or PaperCut.

[slimslob]

Re: Ricoh Aficio MP 3350 will not produce postscript output from Windows 10

thanks for that info, hadnt heard that before.

It was covered at one of the Ricoh classroom training courses I attended.