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?

[Eduardo Rolon]

Did you try printing instead of plotting?
AC plotting is usually for PEN plotters

[Stephen Dolbee]

We also had problems trying to plot. Print does the trick, though.

[Djordje]

Jere wrote:
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?

Forget plotting, your pen plotter is long gone.

Print.

[Jere]

that worked. That's embarassing, i'm sure I tried that.

[TomWaltz]

Djordje wrote:

Jere wrote:
Forget plotting, your pen plotter is long gone.

Print.

I disagree. I find the quality of the printout is much better with Plot than with Print, at least on the Kip plotters I have been dealing with.

[Anonymous]

Jere,

Does your 500 have a GL/2 card? You would have had to purchase it seperately. I'm guessing that the reason that you can't plot from ArchiCAD is because your 500 doesn't have this card. Without the GL/2 card your 500 is basically a large format printer instead of a plotter. You WERE able to plot from ACAD because ACAD uses a translator driver to print files from your paperspace and modelspace layouts. ArchiCAD doesn't use a translator with the plot function. So, when you select, PLOT from the file menu from ArchiCAD, it sends GL2 data to the port of the plotter you have selected. This is all well and good if your machine can translate GL2 data, however, like I said, you'd need to have the HPGL/2 accessory card installed for this process to work.

And Tom is correct, plotting and transferring GL2 linear data directly to the machine is more accurate. . .of course you can debate about the differences of print processes, and operating systems. . .but I think that's been done to death allready here. . .

[Anonymous]

I have a DesignJet 500 and also have had problems recently. I also updated the printer driver which also caused problems.

The solution I found was that you cant print on ArchiCADs "Draft" print setting. The HP only has 3 settings whereas AC has 4 print settings. High, Medium or Low works but not Draft.

The other innovation with the HP driver is that you can now set standard paper sizes. In Australia we use ISO paper sizes but there are settings for other paper sizes including American, ANSI, etc. I found I had to get the printer Paper Standards settings to match exactly the sizes shown in AC for the printer to work. In other words one cant just adjust the sizes of paper in AC anymore. They have to be adjusted in both AC and in the Printer/Properties/Paper Standards for it to work.

I hope this may be of assistance.

[Djordje]

Graeme wrote:
In other words one cant just adjust the sizes of paper in AC anymore. They have to be adjusted in both AC and in the Printer/Properties/Paper Standards for it to work.

AFAIK this was always the case?

[Anonymous]

Hi Djordje,

I used to be able change the paper size in AC and it would automatically change the paper sizes in the printer properties.

But now if the paper standards arent set in the Printer Properties it wont change just from AC Print dialogue box.

I dont remember having the Paper Standards in the old printer setup but they may have been there??? I dont have the old printer driver anymore to verify.