Text colour/line weight in plotmaker

[Anonymous]

Hi,

Our firm is having trouble getting the correct line weights on our plotter.

We would like secondary information, such as neighbouring properties on site plans, to be a lighter shade than the subject site. This would make reading the plans much easier. Now for the questions ..... Is it best to differentiate between the primary and secondary information via ....
1) Pen line thicknesses, and/or
2) Grey scale.

At the moment we are having limited success putting secondary information in a thin line, but any text, no matter which pen weight, is always the same thickness and shade (black). What this produces is a site plan with the secondary lines slightly lighter but the secondary text as heavy as the primary text, and it actually stands out more than the primary text as it is mixed with the secondary lines.

We are having all sorts of problems getting any grey scale on the plotter from either plotmaker or archicad. If I convert to PDF using Amyuni it plots in grey scale but all of the lines are dotted.

I hope this gives an outline of the problem that we are having ... it is quite difficult as the dealer that sold us Archicad is saying that it is the plotters problem and the dealer who sold us the plotter is saying that it is an Archicad problem and as they usually install plotters with autocad they cannot help us.

Thank you

Michael

[Djordje]

Michael wrote:
Our firm is having trouble getting the correct line weights on our plotter.

Knowing which plotter, OS and ArchiCAD you are using would help ...

It definitely DOES sound like a plotter/driver problem. Dotted printing from Acrobat shows that your plotter - or its settings - are not really up to par with the bitmaps.

Is your pllotter's control panel set so that the plotter is driven by the software, or by the control panel settings? It should be by the software.

Also, are you PRINTING or PLOTTING? THat is not the same activity ... and physically, all today's plotter are really large printers, so printing IMHO is a better option, although it might be slow.

[Anonymous]

Sorry .... should have added that information.

Archicad 8.1 R1
Plotmaker 3.1 R1

Plotter Fuji Xerox DW2050
Windows XP.

We were previously plotting from plotmaker but we have been advised to print .... still doesn't change our problem.

[Anonymous]

Good news .... it was a driver problem ....

Now I have changed my pen colours in plotmaker to print in the grey scale that I want ..... how do I export these new pen colours from plotmaker into older plotmaker files that were created for other jobs? I find that when I open old jobs, still requiring plotting, the colours are incorrect and I don't want to have to reset the plotmaker pens every time I open an old job.

Thank you.

[Djordje]

Michael wrote:
Good news .... it was a driver problem ....

Now I have changed my pen colours in plotmaker to print in the grey scale that I want ..... how do I export these new pen colours from plotmaker into older plotmaker files that were created for other jobs? I find that when I open old jobs, still requiring plotting, the colours are incorrect and I don't want to have to reset the plotmaker pens every time I open an old job.

With the pens set, save the placed drawing as PMK. Import it into an old layout, syringe the settings.

Viola! (C) Duane