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View Full Version : Raster Printing Problems in 2012



JCorum939444
2012-01-04, 07:57 PM
After our office had a server upgrade, we all noticed an incredibly increased amount of time it takes to print any drawing that has a raster image. Some drawings would take upwards of ten minutes to print! Publishing multiple drawings then becomes an impossibility, unless someone is willing to wait all day to get their prints. Before the server upgrade, we had no printing problems whatsoever. Our IT guys swear it has nothing to do with the upgrade, which is possible, but suspect. We also brought in new Win7 machines and upgraded everyone to AutoCAD 2012 at the same time. Out AutoCAD rep is stunned by the problem (and probably a little annoyed), but has yet to supply any possible solutions.

These are not very complicated drawings; each only has a single raster image (if any), with no more than ten layers at the most (two at the least), nothing larger than D-sized. We mainly print to either of two HP Laserjet M5035. When printing to the plotter (Canon iPF600), we don't seem to experience any sort of delays -- except for the cases where the drawing is sent to the plotter's queue, only to disappear, unprinted, seconds later.

I've gone back and forth with our AutoCAD rep, as well as our IT group and the Autodesk Support Team. Nobody has come up with anything that actually solves the problem. The printer drivers are all up-to-date and we upgraded our router to something beefier in the meanwhile. I've since changed the raster/OLE quality settings on all the plot files with no result.

We do an awful lot of printing in the office and aren't primed to change policy anytime soon. Unfortunately, production reaches a stand-still while we await prints. I've been able to hold off the pitchforks by having people batch plot in small groupings but it's still an unacceptable change.

dsthilare
2012-01-04, 09:30 PM
Few things that come to my mind to look into;

Anti-virus turned off? Stupid and probably not the problem, but I have seen an anti-virus cause all sots of headaches with 2012. Try turning it off and continue. Also have IT do a packet trace on the plots being sent off, if networking hardware was recently replaced, there could be a hangup somewhere that needs to be diagnosed.

Are the plotter drivers installed on each computer or are they network printers? I have had problems with 2012 and Windows 7 not correctly deploying the network printer causing all sorts of problems. Solution was to manually install and configure the drivers on the Win7 machines individually. Depending on your office size this may not be a viable solution. Also ensure that all the drivers are actual x86 or x64 for Win7 and not someone patching Vista drivers. I have also had that happen, alot of Vista drivers ARE NOT compatible with Win7 when it comes to something as advanced as configuring a plotter.

Raster images ~ What size and what file type? BMP JPEG? How complex are these? I have had problems plotting a file with large raster images like GIS maps and orthophotos. One trick we found is to attach the image in an x-ref and xclip in the main file.

Workaround: Try plotting to a DWF or PDF first, then plot to paper. I know its not a long term solution, but could solve some headaches in the meantime while a proper solution is found.

It sounds more like a network issue than a raster image problem. If it happening on all drawings, even those that do not have rasters, it is more likely a printer / network issue. Keep harping on them for a solution, if they swear its not their problem or network, get higher ups in to get your point across. Plotting issues can create loads of stress on both your staff and yourself. Nevermind the issues that arise when deadlines get tighter.

hope something here helps

cadtag
2012-01-05, 01:48 PM
one thing that comes to mind may be the amount of spool space on the server (since the time factor relates to the server upgrade). since raster takes up a lot more space spooling than vector information does, possible the IT folk could look there, and relocated the spool queue to a larger partition..

England1966
2012-01-05, 03:12 PM
Have you tried printing through Truview? Just a thought.