Peter Phillips

Thanks to everyone for your advice. There's quite a lot options for me to try.

Thanks for the confirmation. I'm surprised it wasn't corrected.

Sometimes, but not always, when I extend the length of some insulation that I have drawn with the insulation tool, it flips and I have to use the mirror tool to flip it back again. I have VW 2008. Is this a glitch with this version. It used to happen in the previous version I had so I was surprised to see that it still existed in 2008. I've put up with it for a year but I'm getting a bit fed up with it!

Is there a shortcut to toggle the Vectorworks-Preferences-Display-"Zoom line thickness" mode on an off? It's something I often need to do, and doing it via the menus is tiresome. I have Vectorworks 2008 (for the Mac) Thanks

there is a Vectorworks preference called adjust flipped text. this might right the text Yes this was the reason. Somehow or other the settings changed so that the text didn't flip. I didn't change them, it just happened. Sorry for the delay in replying - have only just logged on again.

Some, but not all, call-outs (shoulder-to-arrow, 3-point mode) have recently started turning upside down. It is happening on working files stored on my hard disc, and copies made and stored some time ago on CDs. I have reloaded the Vectorworks programme but the problem is still there. Anyone got any ideas what the problem might be?

Hello Peter (Cipes) I think swept circles are more complicated than you suggest, particularly if a vehicle has to turn one way and then the other to negotiate a tight space - something we have a lot of here in little ol England! Regards, Peter [ 11-13-2004, 05:49 PM: Message edited by: Peter Phillips ]

Are there any vehicle swept circle generator plug-ins, for cars and/or commercial vehicles, or even just static templates, which can be used with Vectorworks?

In Vectorworks 9.5, setting the preferences to "Black & White" also causes all fills to disappear. Seeing as most of my drawings include fills, this setting, though potentially useful, is unusable - very irritating. Hasn't this been changed in version 10?

I have just noticed a specifically Vectorworks sub-dialogue box in the main printer dialogue box that offers four options which includes the following: "Enable special processing for transparent color bitmaps. (Uses slowere printing techniques for printers that do not support transparency internall, such as postscript)". I tried this and it didn't make any difference. Can Nemetschek give any advice on this please? I'm desperate to solve this problem.

Reading some of these postings it seems you can't print transparent overlays with OSX, whatever printer you use, because of the operating system. Is that really true? Does it apply to all graphics programmes - such as Illustrator for example? Is there no way round it? If so, it is surely a serious deficiency of OSX - or have I misunderstood something here?

I have an HP500ps printer (I was probably ill advised to get the postscript version), with Vectorworks 9.5 and OS 9.1 and Hp's RIP driver, but it won't print overlay layers transparently - its prints them as solid. Is there any way of overcoming this? Also it print grey tint as a solid blue colour. I use the 'Normal CAD' setting because its not too slow.

I have the HP500PS model and find using the HP rip a drag. Its reasonably quick in normal quality CAD mode, but it won't print transparent overlays, and grey tint prints a solid light blue. I presume these problems are because of the postscript. How can you print in non-postscript to this machine Jnr?

Thanks Katie I'm afraid I don't understand your answer though. Are you saying that the tick box I mentioned IS supposed to enable postscript printers to print transparent layers - which they will not normally do - or are you saying that postscript printers simply won't print transparent layers and that I have to change those layers to print mode? If it is the latter then I will not be able to use this particular, and useful, facility of Vectorworks?

After eventually solving the 'agonisingly slow printing' problem on the HP500PS, which I posted on the message board a few months ago, I've now discovered a new problem and advice on how to solve it would be appreciated. The problem is printing a drawing which has one of the layers set to 'Overlay' mode. I use this for adding landscape planting to drawings which still allow one to see the structural works beyond. The rip just refuses to work. If I change the offending layer to 'Paint' mode everything works fine. I have tried printing with the second tick box ticked in the subsidiary 'Vectorworks' dialog box in the printer setup dialog box (which says it will allow transparent items to be printed on postscript printers {which is effectively what I'm trying to do}) but all that happens is it rips for hours and still doesn't start printing. If I can't get it to work I shall have to go back to tiling a drawing on my A3 inkjet - groan groan! And to think I paid ?2100 for all this!

Many thanks to every one for your help. I have recently discovered a way of significantly speeding up the process using HP's postscript printer driver which may be of interest to others. It is simply to set the "Print Mode" menu to "Fast CAD" (instead of 'Normal CAD' or 'Best CAD' or any of the other settings) in the "Printer Specific Options" menu in print dialogue box. In so doing it now takes only about 5 minutes to rip and then print an A1 sheet - still not brilliant, but good enough. There are quite a lot of other menus in the print dialogue box whose purpose escapes me, so there is probably scope for further improvement if I only knew how. Oh if only computer hardware and software manufacturers provided printed manuals like they used to! Regards Peter Phillips

I have looked at a number of the other postings about printing problems with HP printers, but I don't understand a lot of the technospeak.

Many thanks Katie. I wish I had known this before I bought the printer. How much faster is MacPlot? I would not want to spend the rather expensive ?300 or so for it only to find it perform not a lot better. Seeing as HP machines are widely used, couldn't Nemetscheck produce its own more reasonably priced drivers? Is there no way of using Quickdraw instead anyway, rather than postscript and rips? It works so well on my Epson inkjet.

I have recently bought an HP500PS but am very disappointed to find that it is agonisingly slow to rip and then print, and it locks up my computer whilst it is doing so. I have Vectorworks 9.5 with Architect, and I run it from a G4 Mac. I Have allocated plenty of memory to the rip and to Vectorworks. I use the rip and driver that came with the printer. They were difficult to set up, but with a lot of patient help from the HP tech line, I eventually managed to do so. Before getting the HP I used to print tiles onto my A3 Epson Stylus inkjet printer and stick them together. It was a tedious process but the print quality was excellent and it printed each tile in no time at all. Why does one have to go through the rip process and postscript? Isn?t it possible to use the HP printer in the same Quickdraw mode? Please help. I?m desperate. The present speed is totally unacceptable.

Thank you Jodawi - your suggestion worked. For sopme strange reason the Move command only does not have a shortcut in the combined Architect/Landmark workspace. Presumably this is an oversight that ought to be fixed? Regards, Peter Phillips

I have recently upgraded to Vectorworks 9.5, Architect with Landmark and to my dismay the shortcut for 2D Move no longer seems to exist, although the manual says that it does, ie. Command M. I used to use this all the time in V8.5, so a shortcut is essential. Has it really gone and if so why? Or is it a bug?

Thanks Caleb - Good idea

Oh what a pity. I can't think why it was disliked. I found it very convenient and timesaving. Couldn'y you reintroduce it in VW9 but allow people turn it on or off in one of the preferences dialogue boxes?

I'm sure I used to be able to toggle between a tool and the 2D slection tool but I don't seem to be able to do so any more. For example if I'm using the offset tool and I want to select something else to offset, I press the X key and it toggles to the 2D tool. Having then selected what I want, if I press the X key again it doesn't toggle me back to the selection tool - and I'm sure it used to. Its possible that its stopped doing it since I downloaded the recent upgrade. Any ideas? Am I doing something wrong?

I'd just like to add that this is my most desired improvement to VectorkWorks - ie zomm and pan tools that TEMPORARILY overide the current action EXACTLY the way it does in Photoshop.