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Printing to HP500


Herman

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I'm using the "plan ol'" design jet 500.

A little unsure of the driver.... I just started at this office and they have been just trying to ignore the problem...I believe it is the orginial software that came with the plotter. Any advice would be helpful.

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Go to HP.com and download the most recent version of the driver.

It's probably much more recent than the original installed when initially getting the plotter.

There are step by step directions on how to install the driver. If you have a problem, give us a call and we'll be glad to walk you thru it.

You can also call HP, but you might have a better chance at getting it done fast by calling us.

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Katie-

There doesn't seem to be another print driver for the HP 500. When I worked with VW 9.5 and an HP 450C I had to "downgrade" the driver, but that doesn't seem to be an option either for the 500 because it is fairly new plotter. Now with the VW10 and HP500 I'm having the same problems as I did before (text being blocked out, text jumbled,

printing only half the page). At first I thought it was the Post Script fonts, but I then changed all the fonts to a Truetype and we are still having the same problems. Help.....we are wasting so much time and paper.....

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First, I need to know what version of the print driver you have installed.

Go to the printers folder.

Right-Click on the printer you want to find out about, and then select properties.

In that dialog box it will tell you the version driver you are using.

Please note, HP only lists the most recent version of printer driver on thier website. They do not put all of the past versions up there at the same time.

There is a chance you could be using an older print driver version which could be causing this problem.

Often times, printer drivers are updated about every 3 or 4 months.

If you are using the AutoCad driver, that could be causing the problem (4.61).

You should be using version 3.21 for this printer on Win 2k. It was released 9/9/2002.

If you do not have this printer driver, please go to hp.com and download/install this printer driver.

[ 01-09-2003, 09:41 AM: Message edited by: Katie ]

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Yep that's the problem.

That's the AutoCad version printer driver.

Most AutoCad printer drivers will cause problems with VW and many other programs on the output end.

You should almost always use the standard manufacture issued printer driver.

When you get the CD for the driver version you should be using, you can set it up as an additional printer pointing to the same printer.

That way if you use that AC driver for printing while in AC or another program using that driver, you will still be able to print that route.

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Katie-

I'm posting the message from our Tech support guy at the office:

I?ve spoken with HP again about this problem (third time now) and they do not offer the V3.21 for the Design Jet 500 NON-POSTSCRIPT plotter. The only version currently available for this printer is Version 5.31.

I?ve preformed countless troubleshooting steps on our network, and connectivity to the plotter, print server and all other network devices and everything has passed with no problems. Test pages to the plotter print fine also, from within Microsoft Word, from the internet, and from all other sources except from within Vector Works. When printing drawings from within Vector Works does it exhibit this problems of blocked text printing of the True Type fonts ?heavy hand?, even on Arial font. The problem is not the printer, nor the network, the computer or the software being used to operate the print Q?s.

The problem resides within Vector Works, and I wish they would resolve it and stop using non-standard formatting for their software. AutoCAD had a similar problem relating to the same type of printing problem in the past and they them selves owned up to the problem and now supply a fix for it, but it does not work with Vector Works.

I did some searching on goggle for a mirror sites that may post the driver that you?re looking for but the earliest version I can see is 5.02 for the Design Jet 500 NON-POSTSCRIPT plotter, model #C7769B. All the printer drivers that are designed for this plotter are focused on AutoCAD software.

Where you get version 5.02

http://www.printimaging.com/drivers/drivers.htm

If you?re able to locate the printer drivers for version 3.21 for model number C7769B (Design Jet 500 NON-PostScript) printer, then can you please send them to us, because they?re not offered through regular channels.

Regards,

Michael T. Cronin

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On HP's website when searching for the DJ 500 Non PS -- this is the list of drivers they have

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/DriverDownload.jsp?prodNum=C7769B&prodName=hp+designjet+500&locale=en_US&taskId=8418&taskName=download+drivers+%26+software&prodTyp eId=18972&prodSeriesId=25301&prodSeriesName=hp+designjet+500+series#Microsoft%20Windows%202000

if you scroll down to the Win 2k section, they have a CD ORder form for the 3.21 driver.

The RTL driver they have listed there is an AC driver and will cause numerous printing problems when used for VW as it is designed by AC and optimized for AC usage.

"New version of the Windows CD containing the PostScript and HP-GL2 drivers for all designjets except dj 500ps Software RIP and dj 10ps/20ps/50ps Software RI "

You are usng the HP/GL 2 DJ 500 printer.

There should be a driver on that 3.21 install CD for the HP GL/2 card with the DJ 500.

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Sorry to butt in on your thread, but this topic is the one that has been driving us all mad since we upgraded to VW10 about 3 months ago. We operate in Windows 2000 and have an HP800 plotter. We have exactly the same problems and have tried exactly the same offered solutions but to no avail.

Please do not depend on the 3.21 version of the driver- HP have informed us that this is the version of the installation software- not the actual driver, and the driver it installs is v5.32 which we have already tried.

In our case we have also tried the correct driver for the 800 (again v5.32) and all permutations available. Our supplier in the UK has been unable to offer anything else on this and with a large print run due at the end of January for a very important project, I am getting increasingly worried.

I should add that one of the most frustrating aspects of this problem is that it is not total- sometimes we can get a perfect print, sometimes not- it is completely unpredictable.

May I ask if Nemetscheck have replicated this problem in house and solved it using the suggested solutions?

[ 01-15-2003, 07:01 AM: Message edited by: graham wilson ]

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Katie-

We have this cd-rom all ready, and tried to install it as described in the help section of the installation. The software cd-rom which we purchased from HP was shown on their website as follows. hp design jet printers setup software for Windows 2000, 98, ME, NT 4.0 and XP - Q1254-60005

This installed the HP Design Jet 500 HPGL/2 driver for this non-postscript printer which was suppose to be version 3.21 which instead installed version 5.31. We totally removed the printer from the server, and all drives

associated with it through the Server properties drivers tab and then from the testing workstation as well. Then downloaded the new driver which was

provided on the cd-rom for this printer, and we experienced the same problems as before, with blocked text (text printed all in one line or one

bar).

Have anything else we can try? If you're able to locate the drivers for the HP printer that we're suppose to be using can you order them for us,

and we will pay you for the express shipping charges if any. The paper and ink alone that we will be saving will more than pay for the solution.

Shipping address

Michael T. Cronin

4701 Sangamore Rd

Suite North Plaza 40

Bethesda, MD 20816

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Sorry to butt in but as Graham, (who I work for) mentions above, the 3.21 software is not a printer driver, but the version of the software installer. I had this information from HP technical support yesterday. Again according to HP, v5.32 of the driver is not an autocad specific driver and they say it 'should' work with vectorworks. Previous versions of this driver, (5.31, etc) worked flawlessly with vectorworks 8.5.

I have tried vectorworks 8.5 with v5.32 and it still works though not with a drawing created in vectorworks 10 (and saved as a v8 file) which prints out with bits missing or the text jumbled up.

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OKay I am going to send this pile of information to our printer engineer and see what he can come up with ..

THe same printer driver is used for the following printers:

HP DesignJet 5000

HP DesignJet 5000PS

HP DesignJet 500

HP DesignJet 500PS

HP DesignJet 800

HP DesignJet 800PS

So I have a feeling anyone using these printers will have a similar problem.

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I have a request for a test -

Those of you using the 500/800 plotters with the 5.31 or 5.32 driver --

Restart the computer and launch VW.

Draw a simple square and some lines and text blocks and try to print it to the plotter.

(the type of objects that are not printing correctly)

Let me know the results please.

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That's what I was afraid of.

I was talking to the print engineer about this problem everyone is having. He thinks the printer might be running out of memory and not knowing how to print some things correctly.

Can you send that file you can't print to us at tech@nemetschek.net

ATTN: KATIE in the subject line

I'll then forward the file to our print engineer and see if he can make way with it.

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Katie

I'm covering for Graham Wilson whilst he is out of the office today (and probably most of the rest of the week) I have run the tests which you have requested yesterday afternoon and can confirm that the results we've had are exactly the same as HJ.

Simple drawings printed out no problem, however, as soon as I added a bit of detail to them, it's back to parts of the drawing missing and blocked text etc etc

The staff in our office have had some success printing larger files, but it is very haphazard. Some have found the 500 driver has helped, some haven't. Some have found sending 2 plot files out each time and canceling the first one has helped slightly, although this is obviously not ideal.

Don't know if this is relevant, but thought technical support may be able to use the information in diagnosing the problem.

Thanks

Sandy

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Sandy,

We have a pretty good idea what's causing the problem, but do not have a fix just yet.

It looks like there is a memory related issue when sending larger files. I don't know why or how. It's a little above what we in Tech Support can handle. The printer engineer is now assessing the situation in hopes of fixing this problem.

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