Contone Ink Cost Calculation Feature

Problem/Question

When using Contone printers, no dot sizes are available for calculating ink costs.

Dithering, i.e. the dot distribution in the printout (simplified explanation), for Contone drivers cannot be carried out by the Ergosoft RIP, so that no corresponding data is available for calculating the ink quantity.

"How can the ink costs still be calculated for these drivers?"

Note: To be able to calculate the virtual drop size, you need to know the actual consumption. This information may be available via the printer control panel, front-end software, ink tank monitoring, ...

Solution/Work-Around

To obtain the estimated ink consumption, proceed as follows:

Open the Contone Print Environment
Select "Cost Factors"
Set the "Dot Volume" to User
Enter a value for the "Ink Volume" of e.g. 10 pl
Close the Print Environment

Then print out a file and open the JobTicket. Now, ink consumption has been estimated and costs are calculated.

Compare these values with those from the printer control panel or the front-end software, for example.

Use the following formula to calculate the Virtual Drop Size:

Actual amount (printer control panel or front end) * estimated drop size (manually entered ink volume) / calculated amount (JobTicket) = Virtual Drop Size