smithandcostudio

similar to Drake, the "rasterize" option fixed some, but was really really slow. Before upgrading we were on an older version 8, and had no problems with the same plotter whatsoever. I guess by "horrendous" I mean in contrast to the old plots from V8. They were sharp, clean and all patterns etc plotted as well. Now we also switch to Black and White only for plots, and it helps lineweights somewhat (never had to print with that option on before though), but lines are muddled sometimes to the point of looking like they were drawn with a dull pencil rather than an ink pen.

I'm sure it's been covered here before, but haven't found it anywhere. We're running the latest VectorWorks, with the latest OSX updates on imacs , through a PC (parallel port) to a DesignJet 430....Printing quality of our Vectorworks drawings since switching over to MAC are horrendous, through the same plotter. We used to run an older version of VectorWorks, on PC's, and lineweights and quality was fine. It's marginally better if we change the Document preferences to "black & white only" before sending it to plot, but this seems like an extra step that shouldn't be necessary, Being a little more unfamiliar with macs and the printing preferences, maybe there is something completely simple I am overlooking... Help??/ Thanks!

we have the same problem here the diagonal fill and horzt'l/vert as wekk...I was doing a pattern for a dropped ceiling area, and it wouldn't print, ended up using one of the "shade" patterns instead.....and that printed. Looks like there was never an answer for this?

P TO THE D TO F make sure your sheet and prin options are all set up in the size you want them recieved...I use this for sending fill D size plots to a printer...works great.

cool..thanks..We have a Mac tech coming in tomorrow, to set up two more computers to our system, and link em with printers/shared folders etc....I'll see if he knows! cheers!

nothing? there is no reason for this and no one has ever experienced it? odd.

yup...as of right now, only three of the computers are networked together. All are iMac's, and all three have vectorworks 11 installed and working properly. One is used as the server (basically file storage), and when the other two open the shared folder containing the drawings they only read as Unix exe files..and if they are dragged and dropped from the shared folder to another desktop, they show as the same Unix file again. However from the machine the files are stored on, they show as a VW11 file, and open as such no problem. All "show file extensions" buttons are on...and all other files both show up properly, and are opened properly, it is ONLY a VW11 file problem, not a connection, server, or anything else...

all you said is working and set up appropriately...and all other files (word documents, PDF's, jpegs, everything, is there, visible, usuable etc..) but on the other computers, the Vectorworks files show up as a black box icon, and have no extension. if I open the folder on this computer it shows fine as a vectorowrks drawing file, and is usable and can be opened, but on the other two computers it doesn't, and it;s the only file type showing that way.....

quote: Originally posted by jfmarch: is the server a mac? yup....my computer is basically becoming the "server"...using the term loosely, cause it's really just the common file storage place for jobs. Not going to be running the files off of it, but even copying what are VW11 on my computer through the shared folder ("server") they are copied to the other computers as the Unix .exe files and unopenable...even though they ARE VW files....somewhat frustrating having a network set up and having to burn files to disc or e-mail them to the person sitting next to me!

I'd be suprized if the mini mac was powerful enough to use on an on-going basis, but maybe, don't know much about it. We have two 17 inch iMac machines running on all the basics that run vectorworks without any problems, and aren't terribly more expensive than buying a new PC with a monitor etc....

there is also a CD tutorial out there called Vectorworks Foundation one For AutoCad users that speciallizes in working in it as an autocad user. Two seasoned Autocad users here have changed over in the past couple weeks after changing to Mac platform at the same time, and both said it was pretty useful in learning at the least all the basic commands...as that is generally the biggest frustration, knowing what you want to do, but not finding the commands, especially "sans" command prompt......

We're set up here on a small 5 computer network, with 3 of us on new imacs using vectorworks 11. We're using the most powerful machine as a server for file storage, and our problem is that the files are only showing as Unix exe. files, and sometimes won't even open properly with the "open with" function. Any thoughts as to why these files aren't recognized over the network? thanks!

top....

thanks...I'll try that... there isn't a "recover files" option anywhere in vectorworks I'm guessing?

IT APPARENTLY ALSO CORRUPTED ANY OF THE LOST AUTOCAD FILES AS WELL...ALTHOUGH ANYTHING ELSE WAS RECOVERED FINE....excel, jpegs, word files pdf's etc... when I open one of the files, off my machine directly, or through the server I get this message "This file was damaged. It will open with as much data as possible" then vectorworks entirely crashes, even with previously open files opened, and says "The application Vectorworks has unexpectedly quit" and shuts down althogether....

Hi! thanks for the ideas and suggestions...we had a recovery done on the server as it appears that the DVD writer/back up program is the culprit here... Next question is, it appears that we were able to recover just about everything lost, and now pretty much the only files that won't open are the Vector Works 11 files...It just shuts down the application. Excel files and most everything are ok...I'm burning the recovered files t oDVD to see if the older files that were lost can be opened in our old version of vectorworks off the pc.....but so far noe of the vectorworks11 files will wok. Any suggestions on that? Thanks

Hi...this is going to sound like a pretty long and confusing question, but hopefully I can outline it. We are currently in the process of changing over our platforms from PC to Mac. We had all of our files on a PC server, and because we had yet to have everyhing converted to Mac platforms, and still use autocad files for as builts that come in to the office, we kept the PC server temporarily to store everything on, while we began the long process of conversion. We also upgraded to Vectorworks 11 Architect, as we needed new software for the mac's. Friday a DVD-RW was left in the PC server, which was still scheduled for backup saturday evening. Also one of the first times a back up was run since the conversion to mac. Coming in to the office today pretty much anything that had been opened or modified on the Mac's, most notably anything in Vectorworks 11, but also word, excel, and picture files, no longer exists on the PC server, as well as nothing shown on the backup disc as having been backed up. So in essence it would appear that anything modified or created on mac platform in vectorworks 11 has dissapeared from existance. All autocad files, and even old vectorworks drawings with the .mcd extension (we formerlly had version 8 or 9 I believe) are still there though. I downloaded a program to search for lost files, called "Retrieve My Files" and it diod the full search of the drive and found nothing. Any thoughts/help???? This is not a good thing... [ 01-24-2005, 02:20 PM: Message edited by: smithandcostudio ]