Title block is making the lines of the drawing not plot?

[Anonymous]

When I place a title block created in photoshop in the layout I use "send to back" so that the drawing lines are not hidden by white title block background. The plotter does not understand this and it just plots the title block with no drawing lines. When I save the title block in photoshop as having a transparent background it does not matter. It still shows up white as an external drawing in ArchiCAD. Also if I delete the title block(external drawing) the plotter will plot the lines of the drawing.

[Thomas Holm]

1. Never Plot when you have bitmaps (like photoshop images) in your design. Always Print!

2. There is a setting somewhere, in the Layout or Master Layout settings I think, where you decide if the Master Layout comtents should print on top or under the layout's content's (Views etc.) don't remember where, go look, and check Help.

[David Maudlin]

Thomas wrote:
2. There is a setting somewhere, in the Layout or Master Layout settings I think, where you decide if the Master Layout comtents should print on top or under the layout's content's (Views etc.) don't remember where,...

It is at Preferences > Layouts > Display Master Layout > Above Layout or Below Layout

HTH

David

[Anonymous]

"Thomas Holm" wrote:
1. Never Plot when you have bitmaps (like photoshop images) in your design. Always Print!

great,thanks for the info. Whats the problem with bitmaps?

[Thomas Holm]

eastcoast413 wrote:
Whats the problem with bitmaps?

The Plot command and procedure is a "legacy" method that was originally made for pen plotters. It produces a stream of pen movement commands like "use pen no.#1, pen down at x,y, draw to x1,y1, pen up, change pen to #2, go to x2,y2, pen down"... etc.

This command stream can be sent to a plotter or saved as a plot file in one of a number of plot languages (like HPGL), depending on plotter manufacturer. It is a very efficent format as long as the output is vectors only.

Bitmaps were originally plotted the same way, lots of pen ups and downs, very inefficient. Later they introduced workarounds in the plotter languages to let the bitmaps through to raster plotters/printers.

Nowadays with raster (inkjet and laser) printers that don't move pens but print a raster of sprayed dots on the paper, the plot file is interpreted and rasterized by the printer. It is not system standard, but manufacturere dependant. That is why you have to set it up for each plotter directly in Archicad.

So, now when all raster plotters also are printers that support system standard print procedures, you might just as well do the rasterizing yourself using standard Print procedures. Much less work and much less risk of errors!