Create a .PLT file in VW12 & Mac OS X 10.4.5

[Hugo]

Is this possible? I found older posts about this, but from more than a year ago. Has any solution become available? The place where we print our work is asking us to send .PLT files.

Thank you.

[dcont]

There is a couple of ways, i think. There is something called gimp print but I have never used it. We used to use a third party add on called x-rip, but we have since abandoned using plt files. We use pdf files now and with great success. The quality was greatly improved compared with the plt files. We normally print large format architectural drawings and set the dpi output to 300 and the line quality prints out perfectly. With the plt files, we used to get very jagged curves and now with pdfs they are more accurate.

[ 03-02-2006, 11:22 AM: Message edited by: dcont ]

[jan15]

I haven't read the older posts you're talking about, but I don't understand why there's any problem doing this. I used to do it many years ago, with VW v8 on Windows 95, and I don't remember anything difficult about it. A quick look suggests to me that it's just as easy on Windows XP; I don't have a print spooler now so I can't test it.

You have to get the driver or installation program for the plotter they're going to use, and install it as a system printer on your machine. Then print from VW (or any other application) to that plotter, and check the box labelled "Print to File". It prompts you for an output file name. You send that file to the print shop and they feed it directly into their plotter.

[wv_vectorworker]

PDF is the way to go. Ask your plotter service if they can print PDFs.

use Combine PDF (www.versiontracker.com) to make multiple sheet pdfs

[jan15]

Some print shops have a lower price for printing from plot files than for printing from DWG, PDF, MCD, etc. files.

They have to pay a skilled worker to open your file in the appropriate application, do the print set-up, and print. If you do all that for them they can charge less.

[mike m oz]

jan15 - What special skill is required to open up a file in Acrobat Reader and print from it?

[Hugo]

The print service we use can print PDFs, but they claim the process is slower than printing PLTs... they say PLTs are simpler (I can imagine anything easier than printing a PDF file...).

So I am curious if there is any way of exporting VW drawings to PLT. I will check if I can discover the plotter they use. Someone is supposed to teach me how to do this but I suspect they will know nothing about Macs so I will remain sending PDFs. I have Adobe Acrobat so the process is very easy for me and I actually get excellent prints selecting "Press Quality" in the PDF settings. But I'm still curious about the .PLT thing.

Thank you all, very much.

[Peter Huggins]

Hugo,

The printing shop is probably asking for a .PLT file because they're used to that for AutoCAD. You might ask them if they can print from a PDF as that will be much simpler for you.

[jan15]

It's not a special skill, Mike, but it does take a little time, and the person who does it isn't paid the minimum wage that many print shop workers get. Printing is a very competitive business, and the shops tend to be very jealous of the time spent by such workers. In the days before computers, anything above the level of stacking and rolling up diazo prints was billed as "art".

The last print shop I talked to about it said they charge an extra $6 per sheet to plot from anything but a PLT file. That's less than it would have cost in my time to create the PLT files, and anyway the contractor who wanted the drawings was paying for the plots, so I didn't send them PLT files. It would have been as easy as plotting to my own plotter, except for the added time of typing a filename for each PLT file, but I didn't want to take the time right then.

To turn your question back to you, what special skill is required for an architect to check the "Print to File" box in the Print window?

[mike m oz]

jan15 - i wasn't trying to have a dig at you. I was expressing my frustrations about the attitude of many print shops to printing anything other than plt files.

I've been down the same road and been frustrated by the apparent unwillingness to do anything other than print from .plt files. Obviously the same situation exists over there. The additional $6 they are charging you certainly more than covers the time it takes to print from PDF.

Print to file isn't an option on a mac. I wish it was.

[ 03-03-2006, 12:35 PM: Message edited by: mike m oz ]

[jan15]

Ohhh...

I didn't know Mac's can't print to file. That's a shame.

It's hard to understand why they don't. It's just taking the data stream that would otherwise be sent to the printer and instead putting it in a disk file. It's probably stored temporarily in a disk file every time you print anyway. It would just be a matter of not deleting the file.

Definitely that print shop is overcharging for the non-PLT service. I think they're really just trying to discourage it. Some shops won't do it at any price.

[Kevin]

quote:

---

Originally posted by jan15:

Ohhh...

I didn't know Mac's can't print to file. That's a shame...

---

Not exactly true. I can easily print Postscript to file, or PDF to file on a Mac.

I seem to remember that .plt files are for Autocad. I am guessing though.

PDF is the way to go. It can be read by anyone that you send it to. If my homeowner client can read a PDF, surely your print shop can read and print a PDF file.

[jan15]

Kevin,

That's different. What the print shop is asking for is the stream of codes that get sent from the operating system to the printer. If you give them a PDF file they have to open it up in Acrobat, then do a print setup and print operation, and let their operating system create the PLT file.

That's not hard for them to do, but they're trying to operate like a factory, just dumping files into the stream to the plotter, without any custom work at all.

It's not an Autocad thing. Any application that can print can create them. I think Autocad started the use of the PLT filename extension. Everyone else used PRN. But the extension is immaterial because they're not meant to be opened by a program. You just copy the file to the printer, as you would copy a file to another disk. In DOS it was "copy /b filename lpt1:". In Windows I assume you can just drag the file to the printer's icon.

[ 03-03-2006, 05:14 PM: Message edited by: jan15 ]

[Kevin]

Thanks jan15.

I found this software on VersionTracker: Drop Print 1.4.

It says that it can do this:

"PostScript forwarding now forwards "plt" (plotter) files."

Is this of any help?

[jan15]

I can't tell. The blurb doesn't specifically say that it can create plot files. Only that version 1.4 can print from them.

And I don't have a Mac to try it out on. Maybe Hugo will want to download it and try it.

It looks like it's free, at

http://www.freesoft.cc/review.asp?id=53129

or maybe a free trial and then a $5 price, at

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/7752

[mike m oz]

Back in the days of OS7 we used MacPlot to print to an HP Plotter. There was an option to 'Save to File" which produced HPGL files. The problem was that the files produced were quite large and therefore difficult to email in the pre-broadband days.

I am not sure whether its successors are still able to do this, and therefore produce a plt file.

- the X-RIP 100 'lite' version only appears to support HP plotters and is US$143.10.

- The X-RIP full version supports a wide range of printers, but its price is unstated (the impression I have from a local user is that it is quite expensive).

Perhaps you should get more information about your bureau's printer and contact Microspot direct to ascertain whether either of these solutions are going to solve your problem. A post back here on the outcome would be useful for the rest of us.

http://www.microspot.com/

[ 03-03-2006, 09:32 PM: Message edited by: mike m oz ]

[jan15]

Yes, as I recall the print/plot files were much larger than the CAD files they were generated by, especially files in HP's verbose HPGL language. But they compressed nicely with Winzip, and probably would with the Mac equivalent -- is it still "Stuffit"?