FINDING PPD FILE OF A HP LASERJET 5100
When I was more active with offset printing I had a Windows computer
running the latest Adobe CS software. The subscription cost a lot of
money, about $100 CAD. I left the printing business around 2021 and
continued the subscription for about a year. Eventually I couldn't
warrant the cost anymore, for I wasn't printing as frequently. I cut
out the expense and decided to use my
bought-and-paid-for-lifetime-license of CS5 for future printing
project. These vintage versions of Illustrator, InDesign, et. al, run
on my MacBook Pro from 2010.
Fastforward to Christmas 2023, and it's time to finally try a project
using this ancient workflow. I was working with an illustrator to make
"after holiday cards". (Holiday cards to distribute after the
holidays, a silly idea of mine own). The work was slow going. My
MacBook Pro was loaded with software I no longer used like Google
Drive (~500mb ram). Killing these processes moved things along faster
and I got the plates properly set in their spot colors. But a hurdle
presented itself: how to generate a PDF with plate separations. On my
Windows machine, I had accomplished this by printing to an Adobe PDF,
which allowed me to do host-based separations of my spot colors. On
the Mac, that option wasn't present. Research told me it didn't exist
or lost support a long time ago. I learned that I could export a
PostScript file using the PPD for my printer. Great! But where's the
PPD file for a HP LaserJet 5100?
HP provides Windows, Mac, and Linux drivers for their printers. I
found the drivers for the 5100 for Mac, but was unable to get them
successfully installed. The error message simply stated: "The
Installer could not install the software because there was no software
found to install". Maybe this means it has already been installed, but
no new PPD files were present. Damn.
IMG Unhelpful installation failure
Recalling some of my Mac skills, I sleuthed around the DMG. I
inspected the package contents of the `.mpkg' file inside the
DMG. Inside a folder titled "Packages" I found a file
`PPDs.pkg'. Inspecting inside that packages content's, an called
`PPDs.pax.gz' again caught my attention. I unzipped and soon found the
object of my search. Deep down into bowels of this archive, past
`PPDs/Contents/Resources/en.lproj/' I found `HP LaserJet 5100
Series.gz'. I dragged the file to my desktop and proceeded with my
separations workflow. From Illustrator, `File > Print', "Printer" set
to "Adobe PostScript File" and the aforementioned PPD selected through
the "Other..." option. With bated breath I navigated to the "Output"
screen hoping to see an active "Separations" mode... yes! It was
there. Success :D
IMG Happy looking print dialog