Halftone CMRs

Halftone (HT) CMRs carry the information that a printer uses to convert print jobs into a pattern of dots that it can put on paper. Halftone CMRs can be used with both color and grayscale print jobs.

Halftone CMRs generally specify the line screen frequency, halftone pattern, and rotation of the halftone that they carry. Some device-specific halftone CMRs also include the printer resolution.

A printer that uses AFP color management to print color or grayscale print jobs must use a halftone CMR to convert the print job into a format that the printer can reproduce in ink or toner. If a halftone CMR is not specified in the print job, the printer applies a default halftone CMR.

You can associate device-specific halftone CMRs or generic halftone CMRs with print jobs:

  • If you know which printer is printing the job, you can associate a device-specific halftone CMR with the print job (or with AFP resources inside the print job). The printer uses the halftone CMR that you specify.
  • If you do not know which printer is printing the job, but you want to ensure that it uses a halftone CMR that has certain characteristics, such as a specific line screen frequency, you can associate a generic halftone CMR with the print job.
Because it is difficult to know which halftone CMRs should be used for the current conditions on the current printer, we recommend that you specify halftone CMRs generically and let the printer choose the most appropriate CMR that it has available.

Generic halftone CMRs

You can use generic halftone CMRs when you want to choose one or more characteristics of the halftone CMR for a print job, but you do not know exactly which halftone CMRs