Plotting to DesignJet 500 doesn't work

[Jere]

Help!

I have an HP DesignJet 500 plotter. When I send a plot to the plotter it displays "processing" on the plotter but then nothing happens. In a panic to get a job out I had to publish to PDF then plot from Adobe.

I've been successfully plotting to this plotter for a couple of years now with AutoCAD. Is there a particular driver I must install for it to work with ArchiCAD SE?

[Anonymous]

This is ALWAYS the case with HP printers when you use the PRINT function from ArchiCAD, Djordje. I sweet talked my friend into letting me dump him some T0-PLOT files and he dumped them to a large portion of the designjet line. One of the files was set up using the page sizes from archiCAD, and the other was setup by drilling down into the print properties of the printer driver. With the first setup (just setting page size in Plotmaker) the page size varied greatly (generally, it would print whatever the designjet had setup for it's default page size). However; the second batch worked just fine.

In conclusion. . .Yay HP and Windoze!
On a personal note, I love the HP hardware (printer and designjet line; they should stay the heck away from PCs though. . .), I just can't stand their support. So, if you're a saavy user, and can troubleshoot things on your own, great! Get a designjet! If you aren't too saavy, or can't locate a local reseller that takes care of you, then I'd say look elsewhere.

[Djordje]

chad.lawson wrote:
This is ALWAYS the case with HP printers when you use the PRINT function from ArchiCAD, Djordje.

I always set the paper size in the HP driver, and the layout size is preset to match ... never set the paper size in ArchiCAD as I thought that it would not be smart to expect a dumb machine to understand.

Thanks for the confirmation, Chazz!

[Anonymous]

I found my old printer driver on my old computer and enclose below the Properties. There is no Paper Standards tab which can be found on the new driver. This driver is from about 2002 and is obviously old. However with the old driver there was no need to set paper sizes in the Printer Properties. The paper sizes would change automatically when changed in Plotmaker or AC.

[Aaron Bourgoin]

I'm trying to troubleshoot a plotter problem for a client. Their HP 500PS doesn't have an HPGL/2 card, and its set up as a shared printer on a Mac network. What this means is that its hard wired to an older iMac via USB.

Can someone explain why this configuration appears to work just fine for all their VectorWorks Print jobs, but absolutely doesn't work for ArchiCAD jobs sent to the printer. I've tried creationg PDFs and printing these as well. This deosn't work either.

Both ArchiCAD and PDF print jobs print different things - but both just give up after the first two or three inches of the roll have passed through.

Is there a fix for this in your estimation, OR, am I forced to consider:

a) HP JetDirect and ethernet to put this machine up on the net
b) HPGL/2 card for ArchiCAD output (any downside for VectorWorks?)
c) insert miracle here
d) all or some of the above.

Many Thanks for any input on this output problem.