topic Re: Significant differences in print output between Windows and Mac in Documentation

Significant differences in print output between Windows and Mac

Anonymous — Fri, 19 May 2023 13:49:34 GMT

This is a long standing issue for us and it feels so major that there must be something really obvious that I'm missing, so I hope someone here can recognise what I'm doing wrong.

Red zones are problems, yellow are not.

The top image was printed directly from ArchiCAD 22 on a Mac running 10.13 to a Canon IR C3525. OS, AC and drivers fully updated.

The bottom image is the exact same document printed from ArchiCAD 22 on Windows 10 to the same printer.

As you can see there are major differences around the text and with layered fills that mean the printed images are nothing like what we see on screen, and expect to see on the printout. I think it has something to do with the way macs print, effectively creating a PDF first then printing that, but I've tried and failed several times to find a solution.

Does anyone know what I'm doing wrong?

Re: Significant differences in print output between Windows and Mac

Barry Kelly — Wed, 31 Oct 2018 00:56:55 GMT

I have no idea what the difference could be.
But have you tried publishing a PDF from Archicad and then printing that?

Barry.

Re: Significant differences in print output between Windows and Mac

Lingwisyer — Wed, 31 Oct 2018 01:14:09 GMT

What does it look like on screen?

Are the print diver settings the same / equivalent between machines?

Ling.

Re: Significant differences in print output between Windows and Mac

Anonymous — Wed, 31 Oct 2018 08:54:11 GMT

If I export a PDF on the Mac and print it I get the same, bad result, which is unsurprising since the standard printing process effectively does the same - application -> PDF -> printer.
If I print the same PDF from Windows, it comes out fine.

On Windows the printer settings are untouched, on the Mac I currently have 2 printer instances, one on the latest driver with no settings changed, the other an older driver with a bunch of settings changed and the results are both similarly bad.

On the screen it looks fine on both.

Re: Significant differences in print output between Windows and Mac

Barry Kelly — Wed, 31 Oct 2018 09:03:02 GMT

Kieran wrote:
If I export a PDF on the Mac and print it I get the same, bad result, which is unsurprising since the standard printing process effectively does the same - application -> PDF -> printer.

Are you 'Publishing' as a PDF rather than just printing as a PDF.
Publishing uses a built-in PDF converter which I assume is the same for Windows and Mac (I could be wrong as I don't use Macs).

But Publishing definitely gives a different result to printing as a PDF - even on Windows.

Barry.

Re: Significant differences in print output between Windows and Mac

Anonymous — Wed, 31 Oct 2018 15:21:23 GMT

Yep, the PDFs are published rather than save as PDF/print to PDF. You got me thinking though - I just tried publishing a PDF on Windows, then printing it from a mac - the results are still not perfect, but less bad than publishing and printing from a mac.

Another interesting point is that printing from Mac to a large format Canon inkjet works perfectly.

I'm still none the wiser - I've set up a Windows 10 virtual machine and users are exporting their PDFs on Mac then printing them from Windows. It's a bit of a pain but it works.

edit: file published from windows. top: printed on windows, bottom: printed on mac

Re: Significant differences in print output between Windows and Mac

Daniel Kovacs — Mon, 05 Nov 2018 12:27:16 GMT

Hi,

So, based on what I learned so far, let me sum it up (and correct me if I am wrong here):

If you print from macOS directly from ARCHICAD, it prints wrong.
If you save a PDF on macOS (either by printing to it or publishing) and print that from the Preview application, it prints wrong.
The same things work fine on Windows.
If you Publish/Save to PDF on Windows, and print it on both platforms from the PDF, then it will be fine from Windows, but wrong from macOS.
In all cases the PDFs look fine and only the printouts are faulty.

If all the above are true, then I think the problem is probably with the driver or settings of the printer, and not within ARCHICAD.

Try to print from a different pdf reader application, and see if you get the same results (eg. Preview, Adobe Reader, etc.), to make sure it is not dependent on the viewer app.
Maybe you don't have the latest driver on macOS? As I can see here, the latest driver just came out last month for this model.
Maybe there are some driver/printer settings not set up properly on that specific machine? See if the same pdf would print fine on a different Mac, and compare the results (and the settings).

If the printing is wrong on the other Mac too, maybe the driver for macOS is faulty. You should contact the Printer manufacturer with the PDF and your pictures, and ask them for assistance.

Let us know about your results.

Regards,

Re: Significant differences in print output between Windows and Mac

Anonymous — Mon, 05 Nov 2018 15:58:51 GMT

Thanks for taking the time to reply. I've sent a mail to Canon, we'll see what they say. I updated to the most recent driver last week and it didn't change the output. I've tried all the relevant looking print options I can find, nothing makes a real difference, and the problem occurs across several macs on various OS and driver versions. I feel like it has something to do with the way AC generates the PDFs with transparencies for the partial fills. We have tried Adobe Reader on Mac and it doesn't resolve the problem, I use Foxit Reader on Windows and the results are generally acceptable, but Foxit Reader on Mac still has problems.

Re: Significant differences in print output between Windows and Mac

Daniel Kovacs — Mon, 05 Nov 2018 18:32:55 GMT

Hi,

Some additional info that I just found out (this might be useful):

PostScript drivers on macOS can have problems with transparent fills. If it is available try non-PostScript drivers as well
Adobe Reader has an option in its print dialog to 'Print as Image'. If you print the PDF like this it might print properly

Good day!

Re: Significant differences in print output between Windows and Mac

Anonymous — Tue, 06 Nov 2018 08:20:49 GMT

Thanks, I tried print as image, the quality was pretty poor. The PS driver... we have used in the past, but it has its own problems, and we generally settled on the UFR one as less problematic.

I just got an email back from Canon. Since we don't have a support contract, they won't help me. Great. Going to try our reseller.

Re: Significant differences in print output between Windows and Mac

Anonymous — Fri, 09 Nov 2018 10:58:42 GMT

Hi,

We outsourced our printing the other day and had the same results for different files. I only have these pics sorry, but you can clearly see the fill which is not supposed to be there. This happened where there are paving fills and roof tile fills. Saved from Windows. Will ask which platform they printed from.
[img]https://i.imgur.com/2Ctd5Kq.png[img]
[img]https://i.imgur.com/XCzHG71.png[img]

Re: Significant differences in print output between Windows and Mac

Anonymous — Mon, 12 Nov 2018 12:17:36 GMT

Update: They printed from Windows

Re: Significant differences in print output between Windows and Mac

Anonymous — Mon, 12 Nov 2018 15:38:06 GMT

The guy came back today and ultimately the options he changed weren't very complex but it seems odd that the default settings produced such poor results - presumably the same settings exist on the windows driver, but are configured differently? The printouts from Windows and Mac are now pretty much identical.

In case anyone else finds this thread and has similar problems - I'm trying to translate the options names from French so it might not be quite accurate.

The settings were all under 'Quality' on the mac driver, the first setting is 'Vectorial' or 'Frame' (?), the Frame option was significantly better, and faster. The second thing that made a large difference was Smoothing, there are 3 options for this, one for Grey Smoothing under advanced, they should all be turned off.

In any case, it is just a question of finding the right settings in the driver options, thankfully!

Thanks everyone 🙂