This Document May Contain Binary EPS Files
April 21st, 2008Colette wrote to us wondering about that alarming message that sometimes appears when you print from InDesign:
This document may contain binary EPS files, which can cause the print job to fail. If the printer produces output, then the binary did not interfere with printing. Do you want to print this document?
This message has freaked out InDesign users for years (probably since 1.0). Might fail? Binary EPS files? What?!
Take a deep breath. Don’t panic. A binary EPS file is simply an EPS file (encapsulated postscript) that contains some image data in it (generally a bitmapped image) that was encoded (”the way it was written in the file”) using binary data (zeros and ones).
In the vast majority of cases, it is totally safe and reasonable to print these files. However, some printers and some networks (extremely old ones, I believe) can’t deal with binary data like this because it contains chararacters that freak out the printer. For example, a certain binary sequence may fool the printer into thinking it has been sent a “Ctrl-D” character, meaning “Reset!” So the job fails. But honestly, I just haven’t run into this in… well, actually, I don’t think I’ve ever had this problem myself in 20 years of printing files.
In fact, in many cases, the EPS file itself doesn’t even have binary data. Old EPS files especially can trigger this message — even ones that don’t even contain any bitmapped images.
So I see that alert and I ignore it as just one more harmless but pesky fly buzzing around.
In fact, I typically turn on the Don’t Show Again checkbox, click OK, and don’t worry about it (until the next time my preferences get reset and I see these alerts again).
Yeah, file this under ‘annoyance’ along with the font warning before the Package function.
[insert witty comment here]
Ah ha ha ha ha! Alex, that is too much!
(Actually, I have no idea what kind of witty comment you wanted to make, but thanks for sharing.)
This issue is not limited to OLD printers.
Some of the current HP InkJet and LaserJet printers, will refuse to output binary EPS files. Many of the HP large format InkJet models of 2005 to 2006, had a real issue with outputting binary encoded EPS data to print.
Same goes to some of the cheaper PS printers that use a clone interpreter instead of the Adobe PostScript.
By the way, I should have added:
* Why are you using EPS?! Make it go away! Use PDF instead whenever possible.
* If for some reason you need to save a Photoshop file as an EPS, choose ASCII85, which is more compact than ASCII (though not as much as binary, if I recall).
And I need to point out something else: Colette was having problems printing these EPS files, but after some back-and-forth via email, it’s likely that the problem is not due to the potential binary data (of which there wasn’t any… these are MathType equations!). Instead, it was probably a font issue! Sigh.
Adi Ravid - Your right, I ran into this issue a week ago with our HP poster printer. I had the warning message and sent the file anyway. The printer just flushed the job every time. I sent it to our newer printer and it worked fine.
Yep the printers at my workplace often have hiccupped after this error. It sucks since it happens way too often. They have an EPS workflow for the newspaper ads with just the right kind of files to kill our printer a lot of the time
Yeh it’s great the way it gives that warning, but when you forget to flatten transparencies or forget to knockout the white it keeps it’s mouth zipped. Priorities?
Here’s one potential solution for when it doesn’t print: Set the opacity of the EPS to 99.9% in the Effects panel (or Transparency panel in CS2). That should force the whole thing through the transparency flattener, which should “re-encode” it all in a way that your printer can deal with. Worth trying, at least.
All joking aside. It seems like a problem, could be a very big problem right? If I had an eps i InDesign that wouldn’t output correctly or caused the RIP or printer to crash or to reset respectively, I would take the eps in question and convert it to .ai or .pdf to get rid of “problems”.
What if I don’t have a program to open the .eps file?
Ok valid question Eugene. Well there is the option to export a selection. Select the Image, File>Export> Select format (in this instance I’d choose jpeg (I have no idea why tiff isn’t there?) then I would choose (CS3 only) 1200 dpi if it had text, or 300 dpi if graphic orientated.
In CS2 I believe you can’t select what resolution you export to, it’s just 72 ppi, I believe, well you can increase the size of the eps to fill the space of 300 dpi or 1200 dpi or 2400 dpi if you like and export to jpeg.
Ok, I’ll stop now, I hope to get some feedback, rights and wrongs?
It’s just what I’d do if things went kaká on me, I know there are other avenues.
By the way, you replace the eps with the hi-res jpeg (it doesn’t feel right saying that?)
Eugene, I guess my suggestion is to simply try printing it. If it works once or twice on your printer, it will almost certainly keep working. If it doesn’t work on your printer, then you should get a new printer — or resave your files, or use the 99.9% opacity trick I mentioned.
However, while your output to JPEG trick is a good one, it may rasterize vector artwork that you want left alone. Remember, you may get the binary eps alert even with vector eps files because InDesign doesn’t really know what’s inside them.
(That was originally the whole point of EPS: Programs didn’t need to know what was in them; they just handed the whole thing off to the printer to deal with.)
David, great points and excellent clarifications, as always.
As Adi Ravid explained, the problem occurs mainly with HP printers using PostScript emulator but, curiously, it seems to happen when you are connected to the printer with TCP/IP protocol and not when you use Appletalk. I don’t know why…
How about “Distilling” it?
Eugene, if you have a Mac you can open the file in Preview and save it as a PDF, no need for a “commercial” program. You could do the same with Acrobat Professional if you have that.
Yea what about distilling it? Would that make a difference? I DO like the 99.9% opacity trick, how very sneaky of you.
I used to work with a guy who demanded that all our EPS files be saved with binary-encoding. He insisted that ASCII-encoded EPS were grossly inefficient and .psd files were job killers in waiting. This smacked of DTP mythology to me. So when I had the chance to set the specs for a 1000-page book project, I used .psd whenever possible along with a few ASCII85 EPS and never noticed a performance dip or had a printing problem.
But to be honest, I don’t recall ever printing them to an HP. Also, with all the transparency on the pages, most everything was run through the flattener anyway.
Mike, the guy was both right and wrong. The basic truth is that an ASCII encoded EPS file tends to be twice as large as a binary encoded one. So it’s less efficient (storage and network transfer). On the other hand, EPS in general is less efficient than unflattened PSD (in terms of ease of use, flexibility, and so on).
These days, as file size makes less of a difference, ascii vs. binary isn’t that big of a deal most of the time.
Sorry, jerome I’m a lowly PC Windows user, I stopped working on Macs about 3 years ago when I left my previous job, now I’m a Windows user, I might switch back to Mac at some stage. But in fairness, I was talking just about if you didn’t have Acrobat Pro, or Illustrator or anyway to convert an eps to another format. I was strictly talking about using the features of the one program that was being used, InDesign. It is a clunky work around, but if it won’t print then any work around isn’t clunky.
I think David get’s the award for sneakiest approach, 99.9%, I’ve heard that a lot for tricks on this site, but I’ve never used it. I guess David’s superior knowledge of InDesign and file formats and transparencies are just phenomenal and that’s why he can think of such wonderful creative and sneaky work a rounds.
I just got a deeply problematic PDF from some ad client, which I need to use in an ID file — so I’ll now try this sneaky 99.9% trick, and see if that will fool the bastard into behaving. While I never use those pesky EPSs anymore, your tip may still be of great practical value!
Klaus, how did it go for you?