Major Plotting Problems

[cgrover]

I have a HP Designjet 120nr. I'm trying to plot on a 18" wide roll...the problem is that all the plots come out in a 12" width leaving me to hand cut 6 inches of paper off. I've tried all kinds of set ups and no matter what I do the print comes out the same direction. I called HP and they couldn't resolve the issue...Any help here would be appreciated.

Thanks,
grover

[goodpeace]

I've tried all kinds of set ups and no matter what I do the print comes out the same direction.



I have the same problem! And this drives me crazy!!!

I was trying to make a plotfile for HP DesignJet 500PS. I've tried 24, 36 and 42 inch roll and no matter what my set ups are the paper size in the plotfile (and in the preview) is one and the same: A4 210 x 297mm (8.3 x 11.7in.)!

I was several days at a loss and finally I discovered another bigger nonsense. The first time since I've started Revit It works! The second time (settings are the same) it does not! When I exit Revit and start it again the cycle is repeated: the first time my paper size is OK, the second time it comes out the bloody A4-size!

Try this procedure (first/second time) and make a printpreview only once!

It's a Revit problem not an HP I think.



Dobri

[cliff collins]

Depending on the HP driver, you may be able to check a setting like
"auto-rotate" to save paper--we have this feature on an old HP 750C--
if not checked, it will plot long-ways as you describe.

We have not seen any Revit-driven plotting problems.

good luck! :)

cbc

[aggockel50321]

Depending on the HP driver, you may be able to check a setting like "auto-rotate" to save paper--we have this feature on an old HP 750C-- if not checked, it will plot long-ways as you describe.


... Same issue with a 500ps. I think it's HP's problem. I have the same problem printing pdf's. In order to get it to print a 24x36 pdf properly, I have to select the D size (24x36) as the sheet size, & then use the "fit to this size paper" option & select the same D size sheet again!

Otherwise it'll plot half the sheet.

[Wes Macaulay]

One of the most important things to do when setting up an HP plotter for in office printing is to think about the margins:

- usually 0.2" each side at the roll edges
- usually 0.67" at the front edge (coming out of the plotter) and rear edge

So in AutoCAD, for example, I get my clients to set up their titleblocks and plotting with respect to the actual printable area. So grover, if you wanted to plot an 12" x 18" sheet, make sure your plot is less than 17.6" wide, and less than 10.66" tall.

In your Revit titleblock, you can draw "crosshairs" at the corners - or an entire box representing the 12" x 18" full size of the sheet, but do it with the "invisible lines" line style in the titleblock family. Then make sure that you maintain at least 0.2" clearance on both sides and 0.67" clear at the top and bottom of the sheet.

If you don't mind losing the space, make your clearance 0.75" on all four sides for simplicity's sake. So come in 0.75" and start your titleblock from there. Make sure your viewports don't go into that zone, either.

Note that if you're printing to 12" x 18" as a half size checkset from 24" x 36", that you'll have to double your margins in the 24" x 36" titleblock - so you'd need at least 0.4" clearance on each side and 1.34" each side top and bottom... which is a bit much, I guess!

I think this should solve your problem... let us know if this works.

[Wes Macaulay]

... Same issue with a 500ps. I think it's HP's problem. I have the same problem printing pdf's.
Most PDF writers build in a margin so they won't get truncated when the PDF is actually printed.

An easy way to see what margins a printer driver is going to get you:

- Set your default printer and page size in Windows' Control Panel
- Start MS Word and enter Page Setup
- Confirm that it's the same page size here (Word doesn't print to larger than 12" x 18" anyway)
- Set your Margins to zero and hit OK
- Allow Word to "Fix" the margins -- this will allow you to see what the real margins are.

With PDF995, it's 0 -- you can do full bleed PDFs. But other PDF drivers may be different.

My laser printer requires 0.25" at the top, 0.15" at the sides, and 0.5" at the bottom, and I found it out using this method. When setting up titleblocks for an office, I try to give enough clearance at the sheet edges so that any 8.5" x 11" detail sheet will print on any laser printer they have. And for their full size plotters I check the users manual to get the required margins for that plotter.

[cphubb]

One other thing to note on HP printers is that if the paper length or width exceeds the width of the roll the plotter will rotate it. Check to make sure that your paper size is less than the 18" roll you are using or the plotter will rotate. We have that problem with some consultants drawings that are excatly 24x36 inches. The plotter plots them lengthwise. Our D titleblock is just under the 36" width so it plots crosswise. We had to do a little expermentation with Revit (and Acrobat) to get the plotter to correctly plot and save paper. As a side note this also affects nesting of small prints. If the two (or more) small sheets are excatlly the width of the roll they won't nest.

Chris

[Wes Macaulay]

If the two (or more) small sheets are excatlly the width of the roll they won't nest. Chris
Yeah -- I hate that! It's too bad when you're trying to save paper...

[cgrover]

Thank you, I'll keep trying. Although I took and actual 12 x 18 title block and reduced it to like 9 x 13 and tried to get it to print the right direction, no luck.

grover

[aggockel50321]

Thanks for the tips, Wes. I'll try them.

[tyeelaw13]

One thing i've come across in the past with things like adobe and plotters, is to make sure that that printer is 100% set up in the printer and faxes control panel before even trying to start making a pc3 file to use in autocad. I had to change to a custom size pdf in acrobat, and even making it the default size didn't ever come across in autocad. It still held onto the mmxmm size that was selected by adobe as the primary paper size. Once i fixed it in the control panel, deleted the pc3 and pmp file and starte from scratch, it finally caught.


Here's how i finally fixed my problem. I had to make sure the HP paper type on the plotter was set to bright white, find the smaller margins option and select it on the plotter, and then go to the printers/faxes control panel and under printing preferences, make sure that the smaller margins box was checked there as well.

[Tobie]

When printing selected sheets everything works fine, but when I check the reverse order it scales the drawings slightly smaller......and yes it is set to 100% for both.

[ford347]

I wanted to add to this because we have an hp designjet 800 in the remote office and are going through the exact same thing. I even took Wes's advice and corrected the margins. I even made a simple new titleblock, with nothing in it, smaller than the hp margin's, made absolutly sure no crop regions, text, anything was outside that are, and still no luck. It DOES NOT matter what setting you change in Revit or HP printing properties, the page simply will not print as the preview shows, leaving us to trim 12" off the sheet by hand. We have still yet to contact HP to get some help, but this is insane. I don't think it's a Revit problem, I think it's HP's. We have even experienced the one time work, 2nd time fail thing as well. 99% is failed though. I say it is probably HP because I tried plotting from PDF to the HP as well and still doesn't work + the common denominator here is HP in all cases.

I sure wish someone could figure this one out because so far, this one is over our heads. We've tried every comgination of settings we can think of as well as different roll sizes and it still does not want to print correctly.

I've got a new Xerox 6204 coming in this week, I hope I don't experience the same troubles with that machine!

Josh