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

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'.
11 REPLIES 11
Anonymous
Not applicable
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
Eduardo Rolon
Moderator
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.
Eduardo Rolón AIA NCARB
AC27 US/INT -> AC08

Macbook Pro M1 Max 64GB ram, OS X 10.XX latest
another Moderator

Anonymous
Not applicable
I am confused. You say the problem is with plotting, but isn't the "Océ TDS7600 PS" a Postscript printer driver?
Anonymous
Not applicable
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
Anonymous
Not applicable
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.
Thomas Holm
Booster
Try usiing a solid fill greyscale pen instead.
AC4.1-AC26SWE; MacOS13.5.1; MP5,1+MBP16,1
Anonymous
Not applicable
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
Thomas Holm
Booster
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.
AC4.1-AC26SWE; MacOS13.5.1; MP5,1+MBP16,1
Anonymous
Not applicable
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.