Print resolution issues

[dscheckman]

Hi, I'm having trouble with getting drawings to print clearly. Never had an issue before but of late lines, particularly dimension lines are printing very heavy. They look as though the line thickness has been changed to a very heavy line. On the screen they look correct only when I print they are very heavy. It appears all lines are doing this to some extent. I'm using an older hp 1220c printer, mostly with 13 x19 or 11 x17 paper. This is really making for poor looking and unclear drawings. Any help is greatly appreciated.

David

[Guest Wes Gardner]

Have you inadvertently turned OFF "Show Lineweights" so that you are in essence fooling yourself with what you see on the screen vs. what prints?

Maybe update the printer driver?

Have you changed/upgraded any other hardware?

[dscheckman]

That makes sense. I can't seem to find "Show Lineweights"

[michaelk]

Preferences > Display

It's called "Zoom line thickness (Slow)"

[dscheckman]

Problem solved. Thanks. Now, if I could only figure out why no matter what I do sheet layers always print a bit offset from center.

David

[Benson Shaw]

Some things to investigate:

Is this offset only in VW? or does it also manifest in other apps?

Some print dialogs offer centering and scale options (Adobe Reader for one).

Is your paper size larger than the page size in the print setting?

Could you have selected a custom page size, maybe one with extra margin on one side for binding?

-B

[dscheckman]

Only happens in Vectorworks.

I do have a smaller print area then the full size of the sheet.

Its as though there are margins set up somewhere but I can't seem to find them.

[Pat Stanford]

If go into the Organization Palette and select a sheet layer and click the Edit button you should get a dialog box labeled Edit Sheet Layers. What shows in that dialog box for DPI and the X and Y values for Origin?

If you then click the Page Setup button from the dialog box you should get another dialog box labeled Page Setup. What do you have set in that dialog box? A screen shot might help.

From there is you click the Printer Setup button you should get a third dialog box labeled Printer Setup. What do you have listed under Format For: and Paper Size:

If you have Any Printer selected for Format For it is likely using uneven margins. I believe it uses a top margin of around 0.2 inches and a bottom margin of around 0.55 inches. But since we usually print landscape, these become offsets left and right.