Free PLT Viewer?

[ameador]

(Pardon me if I placed this in the wrong thread, please move it to the desired location if necessary. I am the cad mgr here and I did not see a fitting location anywhere else for this.)

Good morning,

I am looking for a free PLT viewer for my department.
I have been told that the reason why a lot of our people don't want to use PLT files (which tremendously help out our print room people) is they want to view the PLT file before it is printed.

I have looked at the DWF Viewer, TrueView programs by Autodesk. These did not recognize the PLT file format.
We looked at nViewer. While we were able to get the adders to work for PLT, what it showed was so pixelated that we couldn't read text on it.

We have an Oce plotter, but the Oce Client Tools I'm told by our IS dept has an issue with some of our systems and we await the next version of the software. I know that it has a viewer included in it.

So...anyone have a good free PLT Viewer?

Thank you!

[rkmcswain]

PLT is not a file format, only a file extension.

What is wrong with your Oce Publisher? It reads HP-GL/2 plot files.
http://www.oceplancenter.com/download.asp



Here are some more:
http://cadpanacea.com/node/28

[ameador]

I have been told that we are awaiting the next version of the Oce ReproDesk Tools. Our IS/IT dept has stated that there is some conflict with our other software (I believe that was the issue) that is to be fixed in the next version that is to be issued. However, we can not get a firm date on when that will be released. We've been waiting a yr for this.

[rkmcswain]

HA. We have been waiting for 3 or 4 years for the "next version" of Repro Desk that is supposed to be "Publisher"...

Do you have Repro Desk now?

[BeKirra]

HA. We have been waiting for 3 or 4 years for the "next version" of Repro Desk that is supposed to be "Publisher"...

Do you have Repro Desk now?

With the availability of large PDF size (A0, A1 & B series...), I think that the Repro Desk or the like, for individual PC use, may have gone to the end of the road.

[rkmcswain]

With the availability of large PDF size (A0, A1 & B series...), I think that the Repro Desk or the like, for individual PC use, may have gone to the end of the road.

For what reason?

[Hammer.John.J]

welcome to the club of I need a plt viewer....

there are programs out there like plot vision, but not many "free" ones becaues the hpgl-2 technology is proprietary... i think.

[ameador]

I have a version of Oce Publisher.
But I am not allowed to install it onto my dept's computers per the IS/IT dept's request.
(They have it blocked).
The Preview of it works great and is what we need.

Maybe no-one is creating a free one because they know how much of a need is out there and they want to profit from it.

[BeKirra]

For what reason?

I can see your point. hahaha...
What I meant was that the current version of Repro Desk is enough for the job.

And for viewing purpose, you may also use other free plt viewers, just exactly what you said.
For those who doesn't involve a large amount of drawings, a PDF viewer plus a PDF virtual drive, like CutePDF, will do the job easier.

[Liamnacuac]

We have had an OCE for years. It would be nice to view the plots before they actually load the the plotter. I assume the OCE publisher or viewer does that? Can it be set up to run automatically prior to the spooler plotting it?