tom brown

When I print from VW 9.5 it takes forever. As soon as I click OK to print to my HP 1000C, a printing progress window opens up and the program will not respond to anything until the entire 11x17 sheet is printed. This usually takes a minute or two, so the delay is annoying. Plotting to my ENCAD CadJet2 is worse. It can take 10 minutes or longer to send stuff to the plotter and my program is locked up the entire time. It takes hours to print a few sheets. I have W98 on a PC with 128mb ram and my plotter has extra ram as well, but this seems to make no difference. I am using the printers as windows printers. Is there another way or maybe a printer-specific driver for Vectorworks for the HP or Encad printers? I never had this problem with MiniCAD but ever since I converted to VectorWorks I have been frustrated.

I use Windows98 on a PC with 128mb RAM. The images I'm importing are around 200-400k each in .jpg format. I've been experimenting with a test file with four layers, with a different image on each layer. The total file size is around 4mb but I don't know how much memory is taken up printing just one layer view. Usually there is some linework in the drawing created in Vectorworks, with the image added to the drawing. Everything in the drawing prints except the image itself. There is just a big blank spot where the image should be. The printer passes that section by as if there is nothing there and resumes printing where any of the other drawn stuff is. Sometimes I'll import an image which is too large for the drawing area and it will print successfully in the drawing area bounds like anything else. If I scale the image in Vectorworks, it doesn't seem to print. When I resize the image to fit within the drawing area, using PaintshopPro or Adobe, before importing it into the drawing, it still won't print. Sometimes I get lucky and an image will print, but when I duplicate the import the next time it won't. It would be nice to know if there were some basic rules, such as resolution of imported image, whether its attribute should be solid, pattern or none, etc. The line weight/type attribute is blanked out when I check the image's attributes.

I have been trying to import jpg versions of scanned drawings into a drawing and it looks fine until I print. I'm talking simple line drawings. Sometimes the image prints and sometimes its blank, but I can't tell why. I've tried setting the image to 72dpi to match the preferences and I've tried giving it a solid or pattern attribute. Isn't there some sure way of knowing that I can scale an imported image and actually get it to print?

What happened to the trim command that VWA8 used to have? Now there is only a tool, but it doesn't seem to work right. I used to be able to trim walls by drawing a line across it and selecting the trim command. It would split the wall in two and I could delete one part easily. Now when I try to do this I get an error message saying it won't work, even though the manual says it will on walls.

Anybody know why it takes 10 minutes for my Encad Cadjet2 plotter to fire up and start printing from the time I hit the print command? The screen locks up with a half-filled printing dialogue box and sits there for most of that time as if it has locked up and crashed. In VW8 I used to be able to print almost immediately to the plotter and continue working as it printed. Now its like pulling teeth. Even printing small drawings to an HP Deskjet 1000 takes longer than it had, although the wait here is only a minute or so.