topic Re: Printing Black & White when its mean to be colour in Modeling

Printing Black & White when its mean to be colour

Anonymous — Fri, 04 Jun 2004 01:30:53 GMT

Just wondering if anyone else has exprienced Plotmaker printing drawing in black and white when they are meant to be colour.

It happens infrequently to most of our users but one in particular has it happening all the time.

Any ideas?

Re: Printing Black & White when its mean to be colour

Anonymous — Fri, 04 Jun 2004 01:58:01 GMT

I have never seen this myself. Are you sure that everything is set for color printing?

There are several places this can be controlled; in the individual drawing settings, in the book settings, in the PlotMaker print/plot settings (at print time), and in some printer drivers themselves.

Re: Printing Black & White when its mean to be colour

Anonymous — Fri, 04 Jun 2004 02:19:51 GMT

Yes, i have checked all the settings in the diffirent dialogues. I really cant think what it is, except a hardware/software problem

Re: Printing Black & White when its mean to be colour

Ben Cohen — Fri, 04 Jun 2004 08:08:47 GMT

Have you looked at the "uniform pens and colours" setting in the preferences of plotmaker. If this is checked the pens in Archicad will HAVE to correspond with the pens in plotmaker, otherwise you may get all black.

Re: Printing Black & White when its mean to be colour

Link — Fri, 04 Jun 2004 14:32:37 GMT

This may seem very obvious, but PlotMaker is WYSIWYG. Does it appear to be black and white on the screen?

Assuming you have a colour monitor , this could be a telling sign!

Cheers,
Link.

Re: Printing Black & White when its mean to be colour

Anonymous — Fri, 04 Jun 2004 14:59:29 GMT

I have the same problem here. I have both PMK's and images (PAST / TIFF) in one layout in Plotmaker. I doublechecked everything but the plotter only plots the PMK's in colour. All the images are plotted as greyscale.

It's driving me mad and I need this very bad.

Re: Printing Black & White when its mean to be colour

Djordje — Fri, 04 Jun 2004 15:01:53 GMT

macdjoo wrote:
I have the same problem here. I have both PMK's and images (PAST / TIFF) in one layout in Plotmaker. I doublechecked everything but the plotter only plots the PMK's in colour. All the images are plotted as greyscale.

It's driving me mad and I need this very bad.

Which PlotMaker?

Can you post a screenshot of your settings?

Plotting or printing?

How is the plotter/printer driver set up?

Re: Printing Black & White when its mean to be colour

Anonymous — Mon, 07 Jun 2004 07:20:22 GMT

Djordje wrote:
Which PlotMaker?

PlotMaker 3.1.0 v1 INT (1307)

Djordje wrote:
Can you post a screenshot of your settings?

Djordje wrote:
Plotting or printing?

Plotting (to a HP 488CA)

Djordje wrote:
How is the plotter/printer driver set up?

Plot drivers are the latest plotdrivers for that HP. (drivers only available for OS 9)

Re: Printing Black & White when its mean to be colour

Djordje — Mon, 07 Jun 2004 18:24:10 GMT

macdjoo wrote:
Djordje wrote:
How is the plotter/printer driver set up?
Plot drivers are the latest plotdrivers for that HP. (drivers only available for OS 9)

I meant to ask is maybe the plotter set to use black ink only in the driver settings? Is the plotter's control panel (and driver) set to be driven by the software, as it should be from PlotMaker?

Re: Printing Black & White when its mean to be colour

Anonymous — Sat, 11 Mar 2006 00:07:50 GMT

hi there, I have the same strange problem, I've checked everywhere and ticked every case where it said color, but to no use, the plotter (hp designjet500) continues to PLOT in B&W, in my pmk drawings have got imbedded some jpg pictures, and color hatch.
The only way I could have my color back is by using the PRINT command under FILE. The PLOT one, is no use when it comes to color plotting, any clues?

thks

Re: Printing Black & White when its mean to be colour

Aaron Bourgoin — Sat, 11 Mar 2006 00:14:20 GMT

has anyone else using the plotter set printing to B&W on the printer's control panel?

HP print drivers are pretty flaky and not everything can be done from the driver - also, somethings at the control panel can override or ignore driver settings.

Re: Printing Black & White when its mean to be colour

Djordje — Sat, 11 Mar 2006 03:28:29 GMT

alchicad wrote:
The only way I could have my color back is by using the PRINT command under FILE. The PLOT one, is no use when it comes to color plotting, any clues?

I would really like to know why people still insist on PLOT?

Print, and all is well.

Re: Printing Black & White when its mean to be colour

Anonymous — Sat, 11 Mar 2006 18:20:32 GMT

maybe it is a misconception, that when you use a plotter you actually have to use the PLOT command, I guess using the printing command you have much more crontol on your print, and it works!

Re: Printing Black & White when its mean to be colour

Anonymous — Mon, 13 Mar 2006 21:55:05 GMT

Link wrote:
This may seem very obvious, but PlotMaker is WYSIWYG. Does it appear to be black and white on the screen?

Assuming you have a colour monitor , this could be a telling sign!

Cheers,
Link.

My screen doesn't show drawings in b/w when i set everything to grayscale or b/w. it still shows in color yet it prints in the chosen color.

Re: Printing Black & White when its mean to be colour

Anonymous — Mon, 13 Mar 2006 23:04:42 GMT

jcude wrote:
My screen doesn't show drawings in b/w when i set everything to grayscale or b/w. it still shows in color yet it prints in the chosen color.

PM 9:
Drawing Settings:
Frame and Output Color:

Preview on Layout:
1. Vectorial Color Preview
2. B/W Bitmap Preview
3. Frame Only

Output Color:
1. All Colors to Black
2. Grayscale
3. Color

Re: Printing Black & White when its mean to be colour

Anonymous — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 12:32:54 GMT

Z.Bauer wrote:
jcude wrote:
My screen doesn't show drawings in b/w when i set everything to grayscale or b/w. it still shows in color yet it prints in the chosen color.
PM 9:
Drawing Settings:
Frame and Output Color:

Preview on Layout:
1. Vectorial Color Preview
2. B/W Bitmap Preview
3. Frame Only

Output Color:
1. All Colors to Black
2. Grayscale
3. Color

So is it true that one would have to change both settings to make it work in both places. You would think (at least I would) that the drawing should update the preview when you change the print setting. I would like to see this on the next edition because one might miss the fact that it is printing in b/w when it is showing Color. It is annoying to me.

Re: Printing Black & White when its mean to be colour

Anonymous — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 13:20:08 GMT

jcude wrote:
So is it true that one would have to change both settings to make it work in both places. You would think (at least I would) that the drawing should update the preview when you change the print setting. I would like to see this on the next edition because one might miss the fact that it is printing in b/w when it is showing Color. It is annoying to me.

Today you learned that there are 2 different options in PM9 for preview & output colors. And you wouldn't ever, as you say: "...miss the fact that it is printing in b/w when it is showing Color."

The reason of both options are different.
Vectorial color preview is great option that was missed in earlier versions of PM. But for large complex drawings and/or images I use B/W or Frame Only Previews.

You are asking about print preview. I'm personally use Print Preview Option Dialog that is part of my HP Printers Software. Print Preview Dialog is great option not only when you wish to check colors, but also all print job. Beacause sometimes you think all is fine, but PM (others too) prints with some missed images, drawings, annotations etc.. With Print Preview Dialog you can always check for correct outputs.

Re: Printing Black & White when its mean to be colour

Anonymous — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 13:36:45 GMT

Djordje wrote:
I would really like to know why people still insist on PLOT?

Print, and all is well.

Two reasons, Djordje- (and I think we've mentioned them both before... 😉 )

1. Printing requires a postscript driver, which not all older plotters support, at least not without an add-on card or software.

2. Processing postscript data is SLOW compared to sending plot data, at least to our HP Designjet 1055cm. at least 3 times as long to get a 24x36 print off the machine when compared to a plot.

We haven't had any problems with controlling color or lineweight with our plot commands here. Wish I could be more help towards the original post.

Wes

Re: Printing Black & White when its mean to be colour

Djordje — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 17:10:16 GMT

Weston wrote:
Djordje wrote:
I would really like to know why people still insist on PLOT?

Print, and all is well.
Two reasons, Djordje- (and I think we've mentioned them both before... 😉 )

1. Printing requires a postscript driver, which not all older plotters support, at least not without an add-on card or software.

Not on Windows PCs, ever. Sorry, I did not pay attention whether the original complain came from a Maccer.

But, wait - is the above still the case with Macs?

Re: Printing Black & White when its mean to be colour

Anonymous — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 21:18:42 GMT

Z.Bauer wrote:
You are asking about print preview.

I don't care about Print Preview (though it would be nice), I am only concerned when working on the layouts that the drawings do not show up in b/w when importing them as color and then changing settings to b/w. If they are changed in the drawing settings dialog then they should automatically change in the layout workspace. This could be a confusing thing to many users. I have missed it myself a few times. I do not have the option of Print Preview before i plot other than the Layout workspace so it is a concern of mine. We do not use a plotter. We use a rather large printer from OKI. It is the ES3640e(PS). I would like to see this in the future versions of PM.