Creating Plotfiles - possible or not?

[PAD]

We run VW 10 on PC's & currently just print at A3 but are exploring the options for going larger to A1.

We don't have an A1 plotter (all suggestions welcome) so will be sending out to a reprographics company. We have been told that it is much cheaper if we can create plotfiles (as opposed to dwg's). (We are based in the UK where Vectorworks is not as popular as Autocad or Microstation). Are plotfiles possible from VW10 (or 11 or 12)?? & if so, how do we go about creating them?

Thanks for your help.

[alanmac]

An alternative if nobody comes up with the answer is to go the pdf route.

I sometimes need to go bigger than my A3 in house printers and use Hobs Reprographic, as I'm UK based to. After problems with fonts, justification and spacing using dxf I saw other prints which looked great. On enquiry it turned out they had been printed from pdfs.

I use a product called pdf995 to produce my pdfs as this pdf creator will go up to the larger print sizes. It's free to use but has a sponser screen connection come up each time you use, but nothing on the pdfs themselves. Of course this also allows you to check your final images before sending to the printer using Acrobat Reader.

The only downside is I think you may be charged a bit more than a plotfile but I don't know the difference in costs or why.

Check out both pdf995 and hobs to get further info. Hobs may be near you, or use some branches of Prontoprint, or other copy shops near you.

Mine were about ?8.50 for the first AO then about ?1.50 per copy after that, but it's been awhile.

Alan

[ 01-18-2006, 06:08 AM: Message edited by: alanmac ]

[Ray Libby]

Do a search on "plt" in this forum.