Ten media attributes identify each media:
Media name, type, width, height, weight, colour, prepunched, tab, insert and cycle length.
These 10 media attributes are always used to define media in both PRISMAprepare and the PRISMAsync driven printers. However, media can be defined by more attributes. For example, PRISMAprepare and the PRISMAsync driven printers also define the media thickness, which is an optional attribute. PRISMAsync driven printers often also contain product dependent attributes such as media family or X-OffsetFront.
Define the media catalogue once on a PRISMAsync Print Server. Then import the media catalogue into all PRISMAsync driven printers and into PRISMAprepare. You can start using the media directly in PRISMAprepare.
It is recommended that you define the media catalogue on that printer that uses the most attributes for the media catalogue. For example, you own a colour printer, a black & white printer and the PRISMAprepare application. In this example, the colour printer uses 80 attributes to define media. The black & white printer uses 20 attributes and PRISMAprepare uses not more than 15 attributes. In this case, you should define the media catalogue on the colour printer.
Import the media catalogue of the colour printer into the black & white printer and into PRISMAprepare. For each media of the PRISMAsync driven printer, at least the 10 identifying media attributes are mapped onto the 10 identifying media attributes of PRISMAprepare. Other attributes might be mapped to media attributes of PRISMAprepare, for example, the media thickness and 1-sided media. The remaining PRISMAsync attributes are ignored by PRISMAprepare. For the most part, these remaining PRISMAsync attributes are product dependant attributes.
It is not recommended to define the media catalogue in PRISMAprepare and then export it to the PRISMAsync driven printers. PRISMAprepare uses a lesser number of attributes to define media than the PRISMAsync driven printers. For example, you want to export the media catalogue of PRISMAprepare to the colour printer. After export, you have to configure many missing media attributes for each media before you can start using the media catalogue in the colour printer.