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#3582 by kscottr181
Tue Jun 21, 2005 10:09 am
Hello Friends,
I have a 30x42 sheet that I am using for a demolition plan and have xrefed 10 5x4 photos. The drawing does not have a great amount of information on it but when I go to plot, my HP Designjet 800 plotter locks up.

Question: Does this sound like a Version 11.07 problem or a plotter problem? The drawing it's self is only 101KB, small. The plotter has 96+ of ram...any thoughts?
Thanks,
Scott
#3585 by Neil Blanchard
Tue Jun 21, 2005 10:38 am
Hello Scott:

You should go to Print Properties/Advanced and change it to Process in the Computer. This bypasses the plotter memory, which is the limiting factor.

It's not the size of the draw itself, but the size of the plot file that is generated -- and in this case, it is undoubtedly the 10 images that are driving the issue.

You might be able to improve things by reducing the resolution of the images, but of course, they won't be as clear -- it'll be a balancing act to figure out what will actually get plotted vs. what it looks like.
#3591 by Daniel Kaczor
Tue Jun 21, 2005 11:21 am
Hello Scott,

Neil is probably correct that the bitmaps are overwelming your plotter's ram. Unfortunately, you probably do not have an Advanced Tab in Properties. At least, I don't. I have the W98se version of the driver, you may be on XP.

This sounds counter intuitive, but, try this. Open Properties, go to the Paper tab, select Enable scaling, select Scaling options, select Percent and set it 100%. I read on the HP website that for most HP plotters, this will effectively cut the plot file size in half.

I noticed most of the new HP drivers do not have an Advanced tab to change to ...process in Computer. I wonder why. Hmmmm...

:?:
#3592 by Neil Blanchard
Tue Jun 21, 2005 11:44 am
Hello Daniel:

The Printing Preferences/Advanced tab on the Win2K and the WinXP driver for our DesignJet 1050C Plus plotter has the Process document...In printer/In computer toggle.

HP's drivers are totally inconsistent in many ways, but this is one thing that obviously should be in every driver... :?
#3597 by kscottr181
Tue Jun 21, 2005 1:33 pm
Thanks Neil & Daniel, that is a big help. I followed both of your instructions but however I found that when I click on "Advance" I do not have "rights" to change the setting. I'll have to contact our network engineer about this.
However just as an FYI about HP sometime back I had a sim problem so I contacted HP's web site and I found a "hidden" command, here's what it said to do:
1) Right-click on the driver icon (hp designjet 800 in our case)
2)Select PRINTER PREFERENCES
3) Click the BASIC SETUP tab
4) Click ABOUT
5) Hold down F8 and press ENTER ( while holding down the F8 key)
6) Uncheck ENABLE 16 SPOOLSMART
8) Click OK

Hey, it worked, now DATACAD can plot without sitting their for a long time.
Thanks for all your HELP!
Scott

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