Advanced Support Portal

When printing using specialty toners such as metallic silver, gold, etc., this article gives suggestions on how to set up the artwork and settings to use in iColor ProRIP when printing with specialty toners onto direct-print materials (non-transfer style medias, such as copy paper, light weight cardstock, specialty and stationary type papers, etc.) on the iColor printers. 

• Set the artwork to be 100% RGB white in the layout software.
• Export the graphics out of the layout software and then open the exported file into the Overprint print queue in ProRIP.
• Place the gold/silver toner cartridge into the slot the white toner is currently in the Overprint queue configuration.
• Load the paper into Tray 1 or the bypass tray. 
  • Make sure the correct tray is selected in ProRIP under the Page tab within the print settings on the bottom right of the ProRIP window.
• Send the job to the printer.
• If you want to check that the artwork is printing "100% white" (aka the spot toner being used), you can preview the printed job first by doing the following:
  • With the job selected in the job list, right-click with the mouse. In the small menu that appears, click "RIP Only".
  • Once the job has completed the RIP process, right-click again on the job. In the small menu that appears, click "View Raw Data".
  • In the View Raw Data window, click the "Toggle color panes and windows" button at the top of the window. In the "Select Films to View" window, deselect all of the toner colors except white. Inspect the artwork preview to ensure the artwork looks correct for printing. 

• In the layout software, a specific "spot" color swatch will need to be created to designate where the specialty toner will be printed within the artwork. In the color swatch settings/palette of the layout software, create a new swatch in the swatch library. 
• Double-click the swatch or open the swatch properties. Leave the swatch set to RGB color. 
  • If the swatch is set to a different color mode, the swatch will need to be changed to RGB mode. Usually there is a pulldown menu that allows you to select different color modes within the window.
• Change the "color type" setting from Process to "Spot Color". This is also usually in a pulldown menu.
• Rename the swatch color:
  • Silver toner = Spot_Silver
  • Gold Toner = Spot_Gold
  • Other specialty toners = Spot_"toner color/name"
• When printing spot silver or spot gold, set the RGB values for the swatches as shown in the screen shots below:

• Click OK to save the swatch settings.
• With the new spot swatch created, change the fill color of all of the elements of the design that are meant to be printed with silver/gold/specialty toner using the newly created spot swatch colors.
• Export the artwork in a vector-based file format. PDF works well for this.
• Place the gold/silver (or specialty toner) cartridge into the slot designated for the "Spot Color" toner cartridge.
  • Check where the spot toner cartridge should be placed inside the printer by looking at the printer diagram in the bottom right of the ProRIP screen when the CMYX print queue is active.
• Open the exported file in ProRIP under the CMYX print queue. 
  • The artwork may appear different than normal in the ProRIP preview. Here is an example of how the artwork might appear:
• Select "Spot Silver" or "Spot Gold" (or the appropriate spot toner) under the center pull-down menu under the Job tab, within the printer settings area on the bottom right of the ProRIP window.
• Load the paper into Tray 1 or the bypass tray. 
  • Make sure the correct tray is selected in ProRIP under the Page tab within the print settings on the bottom right of the ProRIP window.
• Send the job to the printer.
• If you want to check that the artwork is printing the spot color within the correct areas of the artwork, you can preview the printed job first by doing the following:
  • With the job selected in the job list, right-click with the mouse. In the small menu that appears, click "RIP Only".
  • Once the job has completed the RIP process, right-click again on the job. In the small menu that appears, click "View Raw Data".
  • In the View Raw Data window, click the "Toggle color panes and windows" button at the top of the window. In the "Select Films to View" window, deselect all of the toner colors except white. Inspect the artwork preview to ensure the artwork looks correct for printing.