I'm trying to use the nesting function on my 44" HP z3100PS GP APS, but for some reason I can't get it to work. Perhaps I just don't 'get it', for some reason all my prints never queue up for nesting, they just start right away and of course I'm wasting a whole strip of paper each time.
For what it's worth, here's what the embedded server has to say about my settings:
Job management
Queue: On
Nest: Optimized order (Also tried "In Order" with no change)
Max. number of printed jobs: 32
Start printing: After processing
Max. number of stored jobs: 10000
Username is required Off
Use crop lines when printing Off
Use crop lines when nest is enabled Off
I have the timer setting to wait 2 minutes for jobs submitted to end before nesting, but the printer somehow decides that either these jobs can't be nested and starts immediately, or I've left a setting out.
The jobs all qualify for nesting according to the manual, same quality, detail, margins, mirroring, rendering intents and other adjustments.
The clue that I am doing something horribly wrong is that the nesting timeout never shows up on my display, it just starts up right away before any subsequent job can be loaded.
The manual says "While the printer is waiting for nesting to time out, it displays the remaining time on the front panel. You can print the nest (cancel the nest wait) by pressing the Form feed and cut key." I've never seen the printer show a timer.
My normal workstation is a Mac Pro on 10.5.7 with the last driver from last year (the one before the 1.1.1 HP Driver package that shows up in Apple's software update), driver version 4.3.3.109. The firmware is the very latest. The printer is addressed over IP, with the first instance of it using the PCL driver, and the second instance over IP with the postscript driver.
I tried printing using the postscript driver in every instance, and tried once using the PCL driver with no nesting luck. I also tried pausing the print queue in the OS so then all the jobs were batched and sequential without delay, in case I exceeded my timeout limit to nest jobs.
I also tried my backup dual G5 10.5.8 with the same postscript drivers only (fresh install of OS and printer, postscript drivers only), and the results were the same.
The main application I am trying this from is iPhoto 09.
I tried a quicky print test from Lightroom 2.5 but I have no clue what I'm doing there and the print jobs just gave me 61:01 errors on the HP.
Photoshop CS4 also didn't nest but the images printed out serially, just like they did in iPhoto.
In every case I've tried using 4" wide by 6" tall prints to nest, and the print driver doesn't complain that the page is too small (although rotated it does complain).
I also tried submitting images directly to the HP via the embedded web interface to see if nesting worked. I added 2 images to the job queue and again, only one showed up on the print, the second one didn't want to nest to the first, so now I'm beginning to suspect it's the printer instead of the workstations.
Does anyone have any hints for me on how to get these images to nest? Is there a setting on the printer that I need to turn on first? Should I load the updated drivers or downgrade my firmware?