plotting problems in 12.5

[jaseweil]

I recently upgraded to VW 12.5 and since have been having problems plotting. I am plotting to an HP Designjet 455cm and using Mac OS 10.3.9.

When I send a drawing to the plotter it takes hours to process before it prints (where it used to take several minutes) and sometimes it doesnt print at all. Has anyone else experienced this with this upgrade, and does anyone have any suggestions into fixing this problem.

Thanks,

Jason

[mbodette]

We're also having this problem. It started with release 12 and it has just gotten worse with 12.5. We have an HP 1055cm. And it's only with the plotter, it's not an issue when we send to our laser printers (HP, Canon).

[Kevin]

I guess I will hold off on the upgrade then. I have a 455CA.

[Kevin]

I have a question for you. Have you tried to print to PDF? If printing to PDF is fine, then I would try printing the PDF to the plotter. This may be a suitable work-around.

[Luciole Design]

12.5 files are printing quickly for me on a 455CA (from a Mac).

There is sometimes a problem where patterns (fills) print over the drawing or title block - this is solved by creating pdf files and printing from Adobe Reader.

[KeithR]

We are having similar issues to the above. Reversed printing, but only in some view ports, some prints taking hours to come though or not printing at all, VW12 seems fine, - tried the suggestions above but to no avail.

Any ideas from either the VW team or others, we are a large practice and this is becoming a real issue.

Regards

Keith

[Guest]

The 455 is not officially a supported printer under the OS. You have to use Gimp Print or some other utility to print. Because this is not a supported printer of OS 10, it's difficult to narrow down the problem. The driver is not a standard Apple supported driver. Although Gimp Print is a supported driver for most printers, the 455 is not one of them.

Keith - are you having the problem with the 455 or another printer model?

[KeithR]

Hi Katie, the printing issue occurs on a HP4500. Greying out

The prining issue - non prining happens on a HP1055

I'll look at this GIMP stuff any advise to where to obtain from?

[Jim_Allen]

Try

http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net/MacOSX.php3

[KeithR]

All found a (mac) solution to this issue of printing.

12.5 works fine for drawing, very quick etc.

I have now installed a second version ov VW on the same HD, use this without update to print, all is working fine.

VW technical are looking into this be are having difficulity replicating the issue we are facing, so I;ll wait for the next update to see if all has been resolved.

[Kevin]

The 455 is not officially a supported printer under the OS... Although Gimp Print is a supported driver for most printers, the 455 is not one of them...

Katie, are you sure? Under OS 10.4.7, in the Printer Setup Utility I find "HP Designjet 455CA - CUPS+Gimp-Print v4.2.7" This is what I use to drive my 455CA.

[Guest]

It does use the Gimp driver. However, if you check out the Gimp website, the 455 is not fully supported under OS 10, which means it's not an officially supported printer by Apple.

[Diamond]

I am on a PC running XP Pro SP2 with VW12.5. This slowing up issue has only been since upgrading to VW 12.5. There seems like there is a jam when any print sent to our HP Designjet 500. Vectorworks freezes, and the print goes through very slow. But if I force quit VW, the print speeds up, and prints at normal speed. At first it would happen if I did a batch print. Now it happens with every print sent to the HP 500, but not our other inkjet or our laser. Very frustrating. Adds much time to normally simple printing exercises.

[Guest]

Diamond,

What printer driver version do you have installed for the 500?

[Diamond]

Hi Katie,

We are using HP Designjet Printer Driver v6.03.00. Data File version 2.1 connected to our server running Microsoft Server 2003 .

I think that I will re-install VW and see if that helps. One of my collegues who is working on a drawing I was recently working on commented this morning how my files when opened on his PC had the letter 'L' substituted when the letter 'D' had been on my PC. I am sure it was not due to a misused 'Find/Replace' command. Very odd.

[Guest]

I have had real problems with my HP 750C Plus. Today an A1 Sheet just would not plot. Just before Christmas I did a big design project - it began with 6 A0 sheets which we brought back to 6 A1 sheets. Some sheets would print and others would not. I upgraded the memory and still have similar problems even if I have selected in the printer settings memory from computer.

Up until just before Christmas I had never had a problem with VW printing at all really. Mostly though until then I had been drawing on Design Layers - now I am using Sheets and Viewports all the time and wonder if it is the Sheets causing the problem

[rra]

We have the same problem. If we print something it doesn't print. The printer displays jobworking but it didn't print.

We are using the following Hardware/Software:

- Vector Works 12.5

- Mac Computers with Mac OSX Tiger

- HP 5000 Network Printer

Is there any solution? The problem exists since we have updated to VW 12.5 with 12.0 it worked fine.

[p short]

we have recently had problems printing to our A1 plotter (ancient HP Designjet 330) - problem is resolved by ensuring Quartz imaging is selected in the Display section of Preferences. If we print to our A2 plotter (Designjet 90) and networked laser printers we have to deselect Quartz imaging.

[Guest]

Diamond,

There's a more recent printer driver available. I suggest updating to the latest driver and see if the problem is resolved then.

[Guest]

Darrell,

Are you using batch print, or regular print?

What printer driver do you have installed?

What DPI setting is set for the sheet layers being printed?

[Guest]

RRA -

The HP website is stating the PS driver is not supported on Mac OS X Server. Is this how you are using the printer?

Otherwise, make sure you are up to date using the most recent printer driver.

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/Tec...mp;swEnvOID=219

[rra]

Sorry we aren't using the Designjet 5000 we are using the Laserjet 5000 for small papers A4, and A3.

I've already installed these drivers:

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/Tec...Item=lj-39729-1

But it doesn't work.

I think there's a problem with the new vector works 12.5. Beacuse we changed the Ethernet Cabel, the switch, different Printer Ram and we're using different worksations and every workstation has this problem:(

[Guest]

Darrell,

Are you using batch print, or regular print?

What printer driver do you have installed?

What DPI setting is set for the sheet layers being printed?

Katie,

Regular print, driver is the one for my HP750C from HP's site - HP DesignJet 750C+ (E/A0) by HP and Dpi in Sheet Layer is 72.

I tried to print this file from the Design Layer - not the Sheet and it printed fine.

In my earlier posts - 6 A1 Sheets - that was an import from AutoCAD and I discovered in one of the Sheets that would not plot except to Pdf there were some very long curves - polys - with zillions of vertices - that was interesting as the other sheets printed and this one did not. This latest file, Hatches, Patterns, some 3D 'Rocks' which are 3D symbols with lots of Polys in them.

But it printed from Design Layer.

As I said in my earlier post up until about the end of last November I only used Design Layers - now having gone to Sheets in every design I have this problem.

Pdf is a work around but not excellent always in terms of graphic representations.

BTW I am still 12.5 - have not updated yet to 12.5.1

[Guest]

Katie,

Just printed the offending A1 Sheet to Pdf and even with Export patterns at on-screen resolution enabled and Dpi at 100 my Patterns were just black blobs. I know this can be fixed by using different Patterns etc but it is all just a little unreliable at the moment and must be a challenge to NNA.

If Pdf printing could duplicate exactly a mcd that would be great but to me at least at this point in time it is just not happening.

[timaga]

Our office is also experiencing problems with the HP Designjet 4500ps. Some computers (not all) have issues with certain files.

There are two issues:

1. Some plots come out with only a gray silhouette (including white backgrounds)

2. Some plots will only print as postscript, indicated by "ps" on the display panel on the plotter. These files spool directly from the computer, locking anyone else from plotting. Some files can take as long as 3 hours. These files do not necessarily have images in them.

[Laurence_R]

For the original problem - hours to plot or not at all, we had a similar problem, with a series of drawings, that had been printing fine up until recently. Then none worked at all.

We made a copy of the files and started deleting classes and objects to identify the offending article. Turned out it was a viewport in the sheet layer, which in our case was a key of the buiding plan at 1:2000 scale. Once deleted, with everything else in place, printing was fine. Strange, but the drawings printed fine with this viewport previously. Maybe a drawing gets to an information overload point? Anyhow with these drawings converting to a pdf didn't help - still couldn't print.

Mac OS X

VW 12.5

HP Desjet 800PS