composerwithnotion3 wrote:yes but it has nothing to do with printer settings....at least I don't think so. Even if I print to pdf, the quality is lower, different than how it appears in Notion interface. In the latter is more 'engraved'
As a general rule, printing has a few major dependencies . . .
(1) Operating System: Mac OS X, Windows
(2) Application: NOTION 3
(3) Printer: ?
If the application--which in this instance is NOTION 3--has the ability to generate high-quality print, then this satisfies the primary requirement, and based on the high-quality PDF file that
robsogge posted, NOTION 3 certainly has the ability to generate high-quality print . . .
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NOTE: I do everything on a 2.8-GHz 8-core Mac Pro running Mac OS X 10.6.8, and the "Scene1-4800dpi.pdf" is excellent when viewed on the Mac. When I do a "Get Info" on the PDF file, Mac OS X lists the encoding softwware used to generate the PDF as "eDocPrinter PDF Pro (WinXP) Ver 6.56 Build 5568-5558", which tends strongly to suggest (a) that NOTION 3 running on Windows XP generates high-quality print and (b) that when the PDF file is viewed on a Mac running Mac OS X 10.6.8 the high-quality is there, as well . . . ]
"Scene1-4800dpi.pdf" (robsogge) -- PDF (131KB, 1 page)I did a quick experiment, where I printed the first few bars of "Sparkles" (The Surf Whammys) using the "No Printer Selected" at "Standard" quality options, which is an easy way on the Mac to determine the print capabilities of an application, and this is the PDF file that was generated automatically by doing "Save As PDF" in the "Print" dialogue that NOTION 3 displays when running on an Apple computer, where the encoding software is listed as "Mac OS X 10.6.8 Quartz PDFContext" . . .
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NOTE: This has a non-standard page size, which is set so that the PDF file does not have a lot of unnecessary white space (borders and so forth) . . . ]
"Sparkles-Mac-Standard-PDF.pdf" -- PDF (37KB, 1 page)[
NOTE: This is done with music notation and IK Multimedia virtual instruments in NOTION 3 on the Mac, and the Psaltery Harp is "sparkled", which is the name I use for the technique where the notes for an instrument are put into motion across the "rainbow panning arc", which is done by (a) creating seven (7) additional staves for the instrument, each of which is panned to a precise location, as is the original staff; (b) copying the original notes and then pasting them to the other seven (7) staves; and (c) followed by replacing notes with equal-valued rests to spread the notes across the "rainbow panning arc" in various patterns. It takes a few hours of mind-bogglingly boring mousing to do the "sparkling", but I like the way it sounds, and after you do it a few times, it becomes faster, but no matter how you do it, the fact is that it takes a while. For reference, this is a headphone mix, and it is easier to hear the "sparkled" notes if you listen with headphones. Another key bit of information is that even though it takes a few hours to "sparkle" an instrument this way, it is precise, which is very important, because there are rules for panning, and overall they are logarithmic, since the perceived locations along the "rainbow panning arc" are determined both by the setting of the panning control in the NOTION 3 Mixer and the volume level, where for example notes at top-center are heard with both ears, hence will be louder than notes heard only at far-left or far-right, so as the notes move from the edges to the center, the volume level needs to decrease, which is the logarithmic aspect, but there also is a logarithmic aspect to the panning locations, since as the location of a note moves inward, you begin managing sounds coming from both sides, which itself is logarithmic, and so forth and so on . . . ]
"Sparkles" (The Surf Whammys) -- MP3 (4.2MB, 298-kbps [VBR], approximately 1 minute and 55 seconds)One of the more interesting things about Steve Jobs is that he enjoyed calligraphy, which mapped to a keen focus on printing on the Mac, so as a general rule a Mac essentially is "born knowing" how to do high-quality print without requiring the user to do anything other than to get a high-quality printer, which can be a bit of work, but so what . . .
So what! In the operating system universe, it is useful to know that Mac computers come from the factory with full support for PDF, so doing high-quality PDF print generation is very easy to do. For Windows computers it is more a matter of the specific vendor, but the last time I checked the general rule was that if you want to do high-quality PDF print generation on a Windows computer, then you need to get a PDF converter or something . . .
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NOTE: As a bit of background, I have done software engineering in Windows since the first version, but I only do it when someone pays me and provides a Windows machine and all the software, which has the real world consequence that my most recent paying customer was focused on Windows XP and Windows Server but did not like Windows Vista (to the point of giving me a high-end HP machine with Windows Vista installed, because it disturbed him so greatly that he did not want it in the building, which was fine with me, except that it disturbed me so much that I put it back in the box, where it continues to be parked, but he also provided two more computers running Windows XP Professional and Windows Server, which is what I used), so my recent expertise is somewhat limited to Windows XP and Windows Server, and I had to get a PDF converter to generate high-quality PDF files for Microsoft Word documents, which as I recall cost less than $100, and it worked very nicely. And for reference, the only time I work on Windows machines is when (a) someone has a truly unusual problem or requirement that nobody else can solve or satisfy and (b) they are willing to pay me handsomely to delve into the problem in vast detail, which is what I do with everything. And it is not so much a matter of my being a rocket scientist as is it a matter of being able to devise experiments to discover what the computer is doing, which in some scenarios is more cost effective than getting a $100,000 instruction-stepper and trying to make sense of low-level machine code, which basically involves reverse engineering and can be illegal unless you have the required developer licenses, which in some instances makes doing experiments a better strategy, really . . . ]
However, there is more to high-quality printing than the operating system, application, and any PDF conversion software, because physically printing also is dependent on the specific printer and its driver, where "driver" is the colloquial name used in the Windows universe for the software that translates the print instructions into whatever the physical printer requires, which is a simple way of explaining what a "driver" does, where in Windows a "driver" is a special type of Dynamic Link Library (DLL), except that it usually has a ".drv" extension, although it varies . . .
I have no idea how it works on the Mac, but what happens is that when you connect a physical printer to a Mac the operating system recognizes that there is a new physical device and embarks on a dialogue with the user toward the goal of determining which software "thingy" to use for the new physical device, where after a while you eventually find the software "thingy" that matches the name of the physical printer, and there you are . . .
And on the Mac, all software "thingys" are not equal, so while a PDF file on the Mac might be stellar quality, if the physical printer and its vendor-supplied software "thingy" is a piece of junk, then you are
not going to get stellar physical print output . . .
As an example, I needed to print a legal document this week, and as often is the case with legal documents some of the fonts were vastly small (perhaps 6pt at best), and my Epson inkjet printer was not able to print it correctly, so I edited the Microsoft Word document in Pages (Apple) and set the point size to "13" for the entire document, which doubled the number of printed pages but resulted in a
very nice high-quality printout . . .
The inability to print 6pt type correctly could be a matter of several things, including the specific type family, and so forth and so on, but rather than mess with it, I just increased the point size . . .
Summarizing, you can do high-quality printing on a Mac and on a Windows machine, but the specific physical printer and its "driver" or "thingy" is very important, because the operating system, application, and PDF software can be working wonderfully, but if the physical printer and its controlling software are not so wonderful, then you are not going to get wonderful printouts . . .
So long as the application can generate high-quality print--which certainly is the case with NOTION 3--then the weak link in the chain will be the physical printer and its "driver" or "thingy", which is the case for both for Mac and Windows computers . . .
If you are running Windows XP, then you probably need to get a PDF converter or whatever to create PDF files, but these are readily available, and they typically cost less than $100. There are free versions, but you need to be very careful, because some of them install adware and a vastly annoying browser toolbar, so the best strategy usually is to buy a professional quality PDF converter application . . .
However, being able to view, save, and print PDF files is
not a prerequisite for doing high-quality print on a Mac or Windows machine, although the Mac does this from the factory. If you have a Windows machine, then to the best of my knowledge you only need a high-quality printer with a good "driver" to be able to print . . .
The advantage of the PDF stuff is that you can send people PDF files for viewing, and they can print stuff on their printers, which maps to you
not having to pay for the paper and ink . . .
Lots of FUN!