Fill Printing conundrum

[Anonymous]

Hello,

We've had this problem for quite a few versions of archicad and have never addressed it. See attached image (sorry so grainy). Some fills print out dark, some light, even though they are exactly the same fill. The areas that look white on the attachment are actually the same fill that's adjacent to them. There seems to be no rhyme or reason as to why this is happening. Also, we have a standard 4" horizontal fill we use for clapboards, and as you can see in the right part of the attachment, a few horizontal lines will show dark and a few will show light. This seems to happen in a pattern.

Any ideas?

[archigreen]

Hi There
I used to have the same problem with my fills until I found out the solution not to mix SOLID FILLS with VECTORIAL FILLS or SYMBOL FILLS
For example: if you want a fill of 75% make a new vectorial fill more compact or if you want 5% make a vectorial fill less compact.
That's the only way to cope with this issue.
Good luck!

[Anonymous]

It may not be of any help, but I have found setting my pdf option to 300dpi is a perfect resolution (yet emails quickly) coupled with making sure I DON'T set the pdf option to grayscale or color, (ie) use Black and White
But I'm sending to my "blue" print house, so obviously your settings may differ.
lec

[Anonymous]

archigreen wrote:
Hi There
I used to have the same problem with my fills until I found out the solution not to mix SOLID FILLS with VECTORIAL FILLS or SYMBOL FILLS
For example: if you want a fill of 75% make a new vectorial fill more compact or if you want 5% make a vectorial fill less compact.
That's the only way to cope with this issue.
Good luck!

Don't quite understand what you mean... Also, the fill in question is actually a symbol fill. Does this make a difference?

[rgarand]

Interesting thread...we have the same problem. I would like more detail regarding the solid/symbol/vectorial fills. I to do not understand what you are saying. Please elaborate.

[Anonymous]

Robert, what brand printer do you use? Someone here in the office thinks it's our printer and how it's interpreting the file. We're using a Canon Color Image runner.

[rgarand]

A KIP 3100. I find it hard to believe that our $10,000 printer/copier/scanner, which is used by our local print shops would have trouble with fills...but I am just a project manager and know nothing about printers.

[Erika Epstein]

Steve & Robert,
Have you tested what happens when you send it to a plot bureau or some other printer?
I had similar trouble with in-house prints a while ago. Increasing the printer's memory resolved the problem.

[Anonymous]

When we send it to the plotter here in our office it prints fine. Increasing the printer memory? It has 67,000 MB. Is this enough?

[Anonymous]

Our printer is also quite expensive and it's annoying that it can't print our da mn drawings accurately...

[rgarand]

One of my colleagues just mentioned to me that he has this problem only when he prints from ArchiCAD. Solution being, print to PDF, open and print from Acrobat. All the fills print fine from Acrobat!

We are all on Macs here, using Acrobat 8 Pro.