Hello All,
Has any one tried printing Capture fields with Xerox ColorQube printers. ColorQube printers are different from Laser printers in technology yet claims to work exactly the same as laser printers at a far cheaper cost for color printing. Will really appreciate any feedback or experience.
Regards
Anees

Anees,

I haven't personally tried printing to one of these printers. However, here's a quote from our "PlanetPress Capture Implementation Restrictions" (available here: http://help.objectiflune.com/en/knowledgebase/Default.html?1508|FirstPick#CSHID=undefined ) :

"Printer limitations

Any document printed with Capture Fields (aka Anoto Patterns) must be sent through a Laser printer. Bubble jet printers are not supported and will most likely cause reading errors with Anoto Digital Pens. Thermal printers will not work either due to the low quality printout and the absence of actual blank ink on the paper."

The Anoto technology is meant to work with Laser printers, and any other type of printers aren't supported. It's not just the "look" of the pattern, but it's composition in terms of what is used to draw on the sheet(toner, ink, etc...), which can affect the pen's ability to read it.

In this case, the Xerox ColorQube printers uses solid ink as opposed to the toner normally used by Laser printers. Therefore, it is not the same thing, and there's a risk that it may not be compatible with the Anoto pen technology.

Regards,
Raphaël Lalonde Lefebvre

Hello Raphael,
Thanks for the clarification. I guess this means I may need to reconsider the Solid ink Plans.

Is there any resource we can use to evaluate the possibility. the Cost benefits of using a Solid Ink v/s Laser Color printers is very tempting (print cost reduction of about 70% in our case) and would seriously want to consider this.
Regards
Anees

Anees,

The limitations are not by choice: they are technological. Laser printing provides precision that cannot always be matched by other technologies. I don't think there's any way Anoto can make their very precise patterns print properly on imprecise technology (note that I can't say whether Solid Ink is more or less precise than Laser Toner - that's not my point).

I guess the only way for you to find out if the patterns are printed with enough precision is to try it (multiple times) and see if you get reading errors when processing PGC files (or when writing on the pages with the pen).

Thanks Philippe,
Further to your message I still carried out a testing on Solidink. The printing is not recognized as capture fields by Anoto Pens. It behaves just as you would write on a white paper and does not store anything for transfer.

Thus the result is: Failed: Capture will not work on Solid ink printers as of now.

With this, I guess I will have to continue with Laser where ever Digital Pens & Capture is in use.

Posting this as a closure for other users who may be considering this options.
Regards
Anees