Topic Title

Our drawings are set up to print 36 x 24" sheets from 36" roll paper in an HP 800 Designjet 42" plotter. In our sheet setup in DataCAD is Paper Orientation at Device = Rotated; DataCAD Layout Orientation = Normal; Paper Size = Arch D. When I set up the sheet, everything looks correct. When I print, it prints correctly, but the preview shows the sheet rotated as in portrait mode. When I Plot to File as a pdf - or plot / Save As a pdf, the pdf is created rotated. We've lived with this for quite some time, but for our clients that we send pdfs, when they view them, they are rotated and not easy to look at. I've learned to rotate the view, but this isn't nice to send to clients. I've also discovered that in Cute PDF, I can rotate and save the pdf, but this can get very time consuming. We've tried changing settings many times, and if the preview is what we want, the actual print is not. Does anyone have any idea what the correct setting should be?
Bev

We plot our 24 x 36 pages on 24" wide roll. I think thats how Datacad works best, as far as the situation you are running into. Otherwise you run into the issue that you are having.

Hello Bev,

This is a sticky situation. The HP driver is quite frustrating, and it is buggy, IMO.

Are you using the "Auto Rotate" setting in the plotter control panel? Have you set the roll width in the plotter control panel? Have you tried not using the Rotated Paper Orientation?

Here's what I suggest, go into to your Printer Properties and then Printing Preferences, in Windows not through Datacad. Under the Advanced tab select Auto Rotate. Once that has been selected hit Apply and OK. Go back into Datacad and the plotter setup. Select your paper orientation to match our Datacad Layout Orientation. Then do your print preview. Your sheet preview should be in the landscape format. By selecting the Auto Rotate, there shouldn't be any issues printing the preview either. I hope this helps.

I have a similar problem, I print both portrait and landscape .pdf's at 11x17" on inkjet; and wind-up with some upside-down. What I've found is to leave the printer as-is for full-size, and use the "check-plot"-controls for the internal .pdf-printer. But once all the .pdf files are re-combined into the master-copy, some are inverted.

The fix I've found is to use the .pdf editor that I use to "bind" the pages together to pre-rotate the upside-down ones first...before adding the right-side-up ones to the queue. First you only select only the upside-down pages for the set; and then you have to rotate the pages right-side-up, then re-save them..then add the rest of the project pages; re-establish the drawings' sheet-order; and then re-save again. It just adds a step or two into collating all the pages into one master .pdf-file for on-screen or remote/third-party printing.

As a rule, I only distribute electronic-files as .pdf's; not as live .dwg/.dxf/.dwf or .aec drawings. For that matter, a always ssend text documents or spreadsheets as .pdf's as well. That way they are record documents...and not "living documents" that might be altered/copied/mis-printed.

Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle!
I thought I'd tried all those combinations, but Artman had exactly what I needed. Part of what I found confusing is the icons of normal & rotated. By selecting normal DataCAD orientation & normal Paper orientation, the print preview, the pdf and the sheet all come out landscape view as I want. You have my heartfelt thanks and appreciation!
Bev

Your very welcome, I aim to please. I find that whatever orientation you sheet your sheet layout is, you need to have your paper orientation match reguardless what diagram shows. Match the wording.

Your very welcome, I aim to please.

[grumbling]Brown noser[/grumbling]

I have been having this problem also for a while since I bought a new computer with Vista. All I can say is Artman is a GENIUS!!

I made the same suggestion, too.

I made the same suggestion, too.

Yes, you did. but you said it differently though

I made the same suggestion, too.

You can always be my genius Neil. Oh wait... Devinder is my genius. You can be Dave's genius.

Oh, heck! ALL of you are a genius to me!

Oh, heck! ALL of you are a genius to me!

Thanks!