What is Simplest Plotting Config for OSX?

[Anonymous]

Since we can't seem to get our old Designjet 220 working under OS X on our Ethernet network........

What is the most mindless, troublefree, ArchiCAD/Mac OSX longterm-upgrade-viable plotter solution?

The plotter will be on our small Macintosh OS X.2 Ethernet network, and will be directly plugged into a hub and shared by our licensed workstations running ArchiCAD 7.0.

What kind of plotter? Should it be Postscript?

Rob Segal

[Anonymous]

Okay, maybe I can be more specific.

Our office is 2-3 persons, Mac based, hard-wired ethernet network in place, all printers and plotters must be stand-alone, plugged into the network hub, shared by all.

Black and white plotting is fine. The ability to use the plotter for other applications would be good--therefore I believe either I need a postscript printer or a 3rd party driver like Micro-Spot X-RIP.

Is it advisable to get a postscript plotter or use the X-RIP driver?

Which is faster? Which more easily shared?

Which has the longer lifeline over different OS versions?

Which Black and White HP plotter, perhaps upgradeable to color, is favored by the Forum?

I will greatly appreciate any help.....Rob Segal

[Djordje]

Rob wrote:
Okay, maybe I can be more specific.

You can.

Which Macs, which OS exactly (10.2.8, 10.3, ... ?), which plotters/printers, what memory in plotters, which network protocol, which ArchiCAD?

Not too much to ask?

[Anonymous]

Which Macs, which OS exactly (10.2.8, 10.3, ... ?), which plotters/printers, what memory in plotters, which network protocol, which ArchiCAD?



1 dual G4 tower, 1 gig memory, OS 10.2.8; 1 G3 iMac, 256 meg memory, OS 10.2.8; Ethernet, HP Designjet 220 with Jetdirect EX network interface; Laserjet 5000 with internal ethernet card; ArchiCAD 7.0 R3.

From what I understand, to get Designjet 220 plotting directly out of ArchiCAD and Plotmaker will take some configuring with IP addresses/Ports.

If that's not practical and easily maintained, I want a mindless totally reliable plotting solution!! I want something that runs as effortlessly and as correctly as does my laserjet 5000. What would plotter/network interface/driver be?

Rob

[Miquel Garcia]

We use an 'outdated' Macintosh running OS9 and PlotSpool and we plot (not print) to a defined PlotSpool Folder. PlotSpool is very easy to configurate under OS9 via AppleTalk and the PlotSpool Folder can be accessed from every computer on the network by the same way.

You don't need Postscript with PlotMaker, specially to print black and white (if you print images the colours are too dark when you plot). But if you want to print to your plotter with any other software, then you will need a Postscript plotter or a Postscript driver.

If you don't have an extra Mac to do that, then you must configure the TCP-IP address and port. The port you have to use to connect to the plotter is 9100. Unfortunately I don't know how to change the TCP-IP address of your Jetdirect from a Macintosh. Is possible to do it from a PC with HP Jetdirect utilities. Then it works for your Mac with no problems.

[Anonymous]

Miguel, thank you. What is Plotspool? Is it a utility supplied with ArchiCAD? Is it PlotFlow, the plotting utility supplied with ArchiCAD

[JCovarrubias]

(ArchiCAD 8 instructions below, for ArchiCAD 7 please see FAQ's 106, 107 at http://tr.graphisoftus.com/)

You would like to be Plotting or Printing? What's the difference? see FAQ 344 in http://tr.graphisoftus.com/

The X-RIP and PS drivers you mentioned is for Printing.

A popular configuration (a quick summary only) for ~Plotting~ used by a significant number of OS X users is:

-HP 500 Plotter
-HPGL2 accessory card
-HP JetDirect device (300X or equivalent)
-HP parallel cable (plotter to JetDirect)
-Ethernet cable (JetDirect to network)

Setup using the TCP/IP protocol:
Configure IP address of JetDirect device based in articles 412, 387 in http://tr.graphisoftus.com/ >>>
FAQ's and input that IP into PlotMaker. Use Port 9100.

File-> Plot

[Djordje]

JCovarrubias wrote:
(ArchiCAD 8 instructions below, for ArchiCAD 7 please see FAQ's 106, 107 at http://tr.graphisoftus.com/)

JC,

Can you post this as a new topic so I can move it to Tips&Tricks?

Thanks,

[JCovarrubias]

done

[Djordje]

JCovarrubias wrote:
done

done

http://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=930