Trying To Plot (aka Pulling My Hair Out)

[ryanmcin]

I recently started using Revit (about 2 weeks ago) and now I have gotten to the point where I am trying to print my sheets, which is where everything is beginning to fall apart. Up until this point we have used autocad to produce our drawings and then we generate plt files which we feed into a program called plotworks and then use plotworks to send the files to the plotter. We will be stuck using plotworks at least for the next few months so I need to find a work around. The problem originally was that I couldn't even get the margins to come out properly. I managed to resolve that by using the HP 750C (E/A0) driver. Now the problem is that the plot file has a solid yellow background which blacks out the entire page when I print. Any ideas?

[aaronrumple]

Why use a separate plotting program? Just print straight to the printer. Revit can batch the job for you. If you need an archive copy, then just print to PDF or archive the Revit file.

[ryanmcin]

To make a long story short we can't print directly to the plotter. Our office has about 50 autocad users (30 full time, 20 occasional)m in order to keep the plotting in order and to allow the plotting to be prioritized we began using the plotworks system. This allows our print room attendant to change the order of print jobs or to pause print jobs and so on. Each user "prints" their plot files to a directory and the the plotworks server polls that director then loads the jobs into the server. The plotter is only adressable by that computer. The system is at times a serious pain in the ***, but since we are a design/manurfacture company our print room needs to be able to interrupt projects to do production releases. I currenty only have four revit users and we are all working on pilot projects and then seting up standards and templates so we can roll out the program company wide in March of 2006. Until then we are stuck with plotworks since I am not going to make the other 46 users change their process now just to change it again in 5 months. If possible we would need to continue using plotworks (or find a similiar program) so we would not adversy affect our production releasing capabilites.

[rodneyf]

Ryan,
Try making your plots directly to your hard drive first then copy them to the directory where plotworks monitors that folder. We have a similar problem here in our office but we use Oce's Reprodesk program.

[Andre Baros]

We have a similar process:
We plot to PDF using a combination of the old Revit PDF writer which is no longer supported and Adobe Acrobat which works on the 1 sheet every job that the Revit PDF writer has a problem with. Then use Oce Reprodesk w/ Ghostscript installed to rip and plot the PDF's. We also archive and distribute the PDF's.

For plots which won't be archived, we plot to an Oce TDS400 configured as a shared system printer set to plot to file. Then we run the .plt's or .prn's (both work just fine) through Oce Repro Desk the same way as the PDF.

We plot through Repro Desk for cost recovery purposes.

[aaronrumple]

To make a long story short we can't print directly to the plotter.
All good reasons. What driver are you using for AutoCAD that works? What plotter are you using? Does plotworks have a preview tool? And does the preview look correct?

[ryanmcin]

All good reasons. What driver are you using for AutoCAD that works? What plotter are you using? Does plotworks have a preview tool? And does the preview look correct?

We use the typical HP 750C PLUS HPGL/2 driver and have never had any serious problems. Our plotters are XES 8850s. Plotworks does have a preview tool, it shows the drawing located correctly inside the boundries and it is graphically correct except that there is a solid surface over the entire drawing and when it prints all that comes out is a black sheet.

[The Sweg]

Maybe I'm missing something, but we use the Autodesk DWF Writer to create a multi-page DWF File and just print from the viewer. As long as the computer that prints to your machine has a viewer, and is obviously set up with the printer driver, it should work just fine. DWF printing has solved all of our plotting issues. We used to use Plot Director with our Oce from Autocad, (plt files), which worked if you could set it up correctly. But we switched to DWF in Autocad and got used to the ease of publishing drawing sets and being able to easily e-mail prints to suppliers. When we switched to Revit, it was our automatic choice and the very first thing I ever produced from Revit came out just as I wanted it to.


HTH

[PeterJ]

Why not buy/rent/lease a cheap plotter to last you the five months? They start at what £1,000 these days?

With 50 plus staff and the commitment to invest in Revit at a few bob a license that must be a doable expense.

[Solomon]

Ryan - I've worked with a similar setup to yours, using Plotworks with an 8830 and then later a 510dp.

Do you have the PostScript or PDF license enabled on the 8850 or in Plotworks? If so - then you will likely be able to submit PostScript plot files or PDFs to the 8850 using Plotworks. This method works really well, because I believe Revit prints to Postscript better than to HPGL, and the plots have always been perfect.

If you don't have the PostScript license enabled, then I would consider the Xerox Windows drivers for HPGL plots and see if you get some difference. Barring that, Plotworks has a Windows plotter driver that may be suitable as well. Also, be sure to tweak the options within the driver. I seem to remember an option called "Enable RTL Native Resolution" that made the difference between a black plot and readable plot.

Another option would be to use the XES submit tool directly to the plotter, bypassing Plotworks altogether, if your 8850 has its own controller. (I was able to use that method to troubleshoot differences between HPGL plots submitted directly and those submitted through Plotworks)

Cheers

Solomon

[ryanmcin]

Ryan - I've worked with a similar setup to yours, using Plotworks with an 8830 and then later a 510dp.

Do you have the PostScript or PDF license enabled on the 8850 or in Plotworks? If so - then you will likely be able to submit PostScript plot files or PDFs to the 8850 using Plotworks. This method works really well, because I believe Revit prints to Postscript better than to HPGL, and the plots have always been perfect.



I did quite a bit of research yesterday afternoon and had a discussion with a gentleman at plotworks. We currently do not have the postscript/pdf license, however following my dicussion I believe that the license will eliminate the problems that we are having. Personally I would prefere creating pdf files then plt files since we would be able to eliminate material (paper) costs by sending customers pdf files as check sets instead of hard copies or the unpleasant tiff scans that we currently give them. The upgrade is only about $2000 and my autocad users won't have to change there processes, neither will my print room staff.

With regards to the xerox drivers, I tried using an 8830 and 8850 driver with no success but I'll go back and check the "Enable RTL Native Resolution" option. The problem I was having is that when I performed a preview of the plt file the entire background would display as pen #2 so it would print black, maybe the RLT option will fix that.

Thanks for the help.