topic Re: AC 10: wall composites Print OK, but Plot solid black in Documentation

AC 10: wall composites Print OK, but Plot solid black

Ignacio Azpiazu — Fri, 07 Feb 2025 14:34:24 GMT

In AC10, wall composites are printing OK, but Plot solid black.

What would be the problem here? It didn't happen in 9. Is there a need for updating drivers, plotters that will just not work, PostScript issues, or something like that? It is an Oce TDS600, the driver is called 'Oce TDS600 PS'.

Re: AC 10: wall composites Print OK, but Plot solid black

Anonymous — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 17:53:29 GMT

I have had this problem also on a old (but still working) HP plotter. This is something new to AC10. Tried using a .plt file, but it still plotted the 25% wall fills to solid black. Is there a setting I am missing?

Help!

Don Lee
AC 10 966 Mac
G5 2-1.8

Re: AC 10: wall composites Print OK, but Plot solid black

Eduardo Rolon — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 18:35:25 GMT

This has been discussed on another thread. If I remember correctly the problem is the "transparent" or "background" pen, switch to white to see if it works.

Re: AC 10: wall composites Print OK, but Plot solid black

Anonymous — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 20:39:09 GMT

I am confused. You say the problem is with plotting, but isn't the "Océ TDS7600 PS" a Postscript printer driver?

Re: AC 10: wall composites Print OK, but Plot solid black

Anonymous — Sun, 20 Aug 2006 00:03:13 GMT

Tried changing the pen to white to no avail. I'll continue to experiment, but this has to be a known issue?

Don Lee

AC 10 966
OSX
2-1.8 G5

Re: AC 10: wall composites Print OK, but Plot solid black

Anonymous — Sun, 20 Aug 2006 01:53:14 GMT

Don wrote:
I have had this problem also on a old (but still working) HP plotter. This is something new to AC10. Tried using a .plt file, but it still plotted the 25% wall fills to solid black. Is there a setting I am missing?

The 25% fill has changed in ArchiCAD 10. It is now an actual bitmap grey halftone instead of the vector dot pattern of years past. The vector pattern was for compatibility with plotters. I assume the change was to improve compatibility with printers. Perhaps it no longer works properly with HPGL.

Re: AC 10: wall composites Print OK, but Plot solid black

Thomas Holm — Sun, 20 Aug 2006 12:36:58 GMT

Try usiing a solid fill greyscale pen instead.

Re: AC 10: wall composites Print OK, but Plot solid black

Anonymous — Sun, 20 Aug 2006 22:55:02 GMT

Ok, I tried all the combinations of pens that I could think of and the only thing that allowed me to plot 25, 50 and 75% (12.5% does work) was to use the grey scale plot setting (as opposed to black and white or color), but then all the colored lines printed not solid but dots.

Any other thoughts? This must be a problem others are having who plot and not print. BTW, saving as a plot file didn't help either.

Don Lee
AC 10 966
Mac 2-1.8 G5

Re: AC 10: wall composites Print OK, but Plot solid black

Thomas Holm — Mon, 21 Aug 2006 09:03:48 GMT

Don wrote:
Ok, I tried all the combinations of pens that I could think of and the only thing that allowed me to plot 25, 50 and 75% (12.5% does work) was to use the grey scale plot setting (as opposed to black and white or color), but then all the colored lines printed not solid but dots.

Any other thoughts? This must be a problem others are having who plot and not print. BTW, saving as a plot file didn't help either.

Ac10 tries to unify plotting and printing. This is quite appropriate, since pen plotters are more or less extinct these days. Many Print to raster plotters instead ofusing the old Plot command. In the process, they're getting rid of the old bitmapped fill patterns that slowed down printing. I.e., a 25% fill should be a gray tone with 25% black and 75% white. This is normally accomplished by sending a gray solid fill to the printer/plotter and let it rasterize itself, optimised for the unit in use.

But to print that gray you need to enable grayscale printing. Quite logical. This also means other colors will be rasterized/screened to gray. Thin lines will thus be dotted in various patterns.

You can do either of two things.
a - get used to it and change your work habit to WYSIWYG, that is see to it that your screen reflects what you get on the printer, and then turn off B/W printing. That is what I've done. I don't regret it for a minute, will never go back to the old Autocad-style color-symbolizing-line-width etc.

b- change the fill patterns you want to some that still are rendered the old way. There are plenty, and you can add your own. You will go on sufferng poor reproduction on units that weren't intended in the first place, etc. It's your choice.

Re: AC 10: wall composites Print OK, but Plot solid black

Anonymous — Mon, 21 Aug 2006 14:33:45 GMT

Thomas there is also...

c. Use pen sets for output that switch most colors to black while retaining the grays and whatever colors are also needed for printing.

With this approach (which I have used for years with PlotMaker) the print setting can simply be left to color and everything is controlled at the layout/drawing level.

Re: AC 10: wall composites Print OK, but Plot solid black

Anonymous — Mon, 21 Aug 2006 20:44:47 GMT

Thank you for all the replies and information!

I did what Matthew suggested and all is working. You still have to use a greyscale pen for the background (not the default setting) to make things work properly. I do recall that others have changed pens to black in plotmaker in the past.

I (like most people) have a tendency to just do things as always until there is a problem. It may be that this change is documented, but it sure would have saved alot of time if I knew a few days ago.

Another option would be to buy a new plotter/printer.........!

Don Lee
AC 10 966
OS X 2-1.8

Re: AC 10: wall composites Print OK, but Plot solid black

Anonymous — Fri, 22 Sep 2006 15:12:32 GMT

Hello,

Another "easy" way to solve this "problem" is to change the "bitmap" appearance of the fill by switching a pixel from black to white or black to white in Fill settings and… that works… for all the Fill that have the same bitmap appearance than 25%, 50% or 75%…

Some more explanation there http://www.archicadwiki.com/Percentage_Fill?highlight=%28fill%29