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Printing Black & White when its mean to be colour

Anonymous
Not applicable
Just wondering if anyone else has exprienced Plotmaker printing drawing in black and white when they are meant to be colour.

It happens infrequently to most of our users but one in particular has it happening all the time.

Any ideas?
19 REPLIES 19
Aaron Bourgoin
Virtuoso
has anyone else using the plotter set printing to B&W on the printer's control panel?

HP print drivers are pretty flaky and not everything can be done from the driver - also, somethings at the control panel can override or ignore driver settings.
Think Like a Spec Writer
AC4.55 through 27 / USA AC27-6000 USA
Rhino 8 Mac
MacOS 14.6.1
Djordje
Virtuoso
alchicad wrote:
The only way I could have my color back is by using the PRINT command under FILE. The PLOT one, is no use when it comes to color plotting, any clues?
I would really like to know why people still insist on PLOT?

Print, and all is well.
Djordje



ArchiCAD since 4.55 ... 1995
HP Omen
Anonymous
Not applicable
maybe it is a misconception, that when you use a plotter you actually have to use the PLOT command, I guess using the printing command you have much more crontol on your print, and it works!
Anonymous
Not applicable
Link wrote:
This may seem very obvious, but PlotMaker is WYSIWYG. Does it appear to be black and white on the screen?

Assuming you have a colour monitor , this could be a telling sign!

Cheers,
Link.
My screen doesn't show drawings in b/w when i set everything to grayscale or b/w. it still shows in color yet it prints in the chosen color.
Anonymous
Not applicable
jcude wrote:
My screen doesn't show drawings in b/w when i set everything to grayscale or b/w. it still shows in color yet it prints in the chosen color.
PM 9:
Drawing Settings:
Frame and Output Color:

Preview on Layout:
1. Vectorial Color Preview
2. B/W Bitmap Preview
3. Frame Only

Output Color:
1. All Colors to Black
2. Grayscale
3. Color
Anonymous
Not applicable
Z.Bauer wrote:
jcude wrote:
My screen doesn't show drawings in b/w when i set everything to grayscale or b/w. it still shows in color yet it prints in the chosen color.
PM 9:
Drawing Settings:
Frame and Output Color:

Preview on Layout:
1. Vectorial Color Preview
2. B/W Bitmap Preview
3. Frame Only

Output Color:
1. All Colors to Black
2. Grayscale
3. Color
So is it true that one would have to change both settings to make it work in both places. You would think (at least I would) that the drawing should update the preview when you change the print setting. I would like to see this on the next edition because one might miss the fact that it is printing in b/w when it is showing Color. It is annoying to me.
Anonymous
Not applicable
jcude wrote:
So is it true that one would have to change both settings to make it work in both places. You would think (at least I would) that the drawing should update the preview when you change the print setting. I would like to see this on the next edition because one might miss the fact that it is printing in b/w when it is showing Color. It is annoying to me.
Today you learned that there are 2 different options in PM9 for preview & output colors. And you wouldn't ever, as you say: "...miss the fact that it is printing in b/w when it is showing Color."

The reason of both options are different.
Vectorial color preview is great option that was missed in earlier versions of PM. But for large complex drawings and/or images I use B/W or Frame Only Previews.

You are asking about print preview. I'm personally use Print Preview Option Dialog that is part of my HP Printers Software. Print Preview Dialog is great option not only when you wish to check colors, but also all print job. Beacause sometimes you think all is fine, but PM (others too) prints with some missed images, drawings, annotations etc.. With Print Preview Dialog you can always check for correct outputs.
Anonymous
Not applicable
Djordje wrote:
I would really like to know why people still insist on PLOT?

Print, and all is well.
Two reasons, Djordje- (and I think we've mentioned them both before... 😉 )

1. Printing requires a postscript driver, which not all older plotters support, at least not without an add-on card or software.

2. Processing postscript data is SLOW compared to sending plot data, at least to our HP Designjet 1055cm. at least 3 times as long to get a 24x36 print off the machine when compared to a plot.

We haven't had any problems with controlling color or lineweight with our plot commands here. Wish I could be more help towards the original post.

Wes
Djordje
Virtuoso
Weston wrote:
Djordje wrote:
I would really like to know why people still insist on PLOT?

Print, and all is well.
Two reasons, Djordje- (and I think we've mentioned them both before... 😉 )

1. Printing requires a postscript driver, which not all older plotters support, at least not without an add-on card or software.
Not on Windows PCs, ever. Sorry, I did not pay attention whether the original complain came from a Maccer.

But, wait - is the above still the case with Macs?
Djordje



ArchiCAD since 4.55 ... 1995
HP Omen
Anonymous
Not applicable
Z.Bauer wrote:
You are asking about print preview.
I don't care about Print Preview (though it would be nice), I am only concerned when working on the layouts that the drawings do not show up in b/w when importing them as color and then changing settings to b/w. If they are changed in the drawing settings dialog then they should automatically change in the layout workspace. This could be a confusing thing to many users. I have missed it myself a few times. I do not have the option of Print Preview before i plot other than the Layout workspace so it is a concern of mine. We do not use a plotter. We use a rather large printer from OKI. It is the ES3640e(PS). I would like to see this in the future versions of PM.