Topic Title

I have this anamoly between my office desktop computer and my home laptop computer and with the same drawing. With both systems set to the same printer driver and drawing sheet size, the office computer fits the text for the project name neatly inside of the title block constraints. However, this same drawing in my laptop pushes the text out over the borders of the titleblock. The text is the Times New Roman font. I thought this might just be a visual problem on the screen of the laptop but the image I show with this posting is what actually prints out into PDF from the laptop so that shows me that the problem that is showing up on the screen is actually real and not just perceived because it prints to paper that way, too.

Any thoughts on why this is happening and any suggested fixes?

Hello David,

Are they both running the same flavor of Windows? Is the version of the printer driver the same? Are they both set to the same default printer?

Hmmm, interesting questions you raise Neil. No, they are not both from the same flavor of Windows. The office computer is running W2000 Pro and the laptop is running Win XP, SP2. I will check to see whether the printer drivers are the exact same version when I get home tonight.

Would DCAD have fonts show up differently in W2000 than in Win XP? Could it be that the fonts that come in Windows for W2000 are different than the fonts that come with Win XP and even though both computers think the font is New Times Roman, they show up differently?

Have you tried changing the font to something non-MS standard (ie. something from, say, a desktop publishing package or some other program that installed other fonts)? Neil's comment about the flavor of Windoze made me think that MS may have changed the font somewhat/somehow that could be the problem? What about if you change it to a CHR and then back to TTF?

Just a thought ...

We had this issue back a long time ago. It was a difference between the Win98 & WinXP for us. I think it was one of my first post in the DBUG forum actually. Seemed to only be related to TTF's. Never did find out what caused it. We ended up upgrading all the systems to XP and everything went on fine from there after. Well at least with this issue that is.

Thanks for all of the different thoughts. I experimented with all of them. Made sure the printer drivers matched from both computers, even tried to make both computers use the same font and from the same year. Well, that didn't work.

Changed the font to a CHR font and then back. Didn't really find anything to fix the problem so I will live with it and do all of the plotting from the office computer so that the project title doesn't escape the edges of the titleblock. Not a big deal and I have worked around it before. And, the W2000 machine by December will get replaced, probably/unfortunately with a Vista machine so that will probably then present a whole new set of conflicts.

Hello David,

Since they are different versions of Windows, they are different printer drivers -- and HP is anything but consistent on their drivers. I have seen Win98, Win2K, and WinXP drivers for the same model plotter all produce different plot areas -- inches different!

And as we've just seen recently, the default printer driver has everything to do with what is displayed on the screen.

I am having this same problem.

Here at the office I am running Windows XP Pro SP2. Just this past week TTF's began to display with what appears to be a tighter aspect than they did before in both DataCAD 11 and 12. At home I am running Windows XP Home SP2 and the TTF's appear as they always have.

I draw a line under my drawing title and trim it to match the legnth of the title. At home the line matches the title, here at work now the title is short of the line's end.

I am thinking an automatic update screwed this up in the Pro version of WinXP.

Tony,

I too am running XP Pro, SP2. I don't remember the font screw-up always being a problem with XP Pro. I think you have hit on something about it being related to an automatic update. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. And, I don't think it has to do with the printer driver because the font problem shows up on the screen, too, and I don't think what shows up on the screen is printer driver dependent.

So, then, the screen display in DataCAD can be printer driver dependent?

I meant what one see's on the screen when just working in DCAD, not what one see's on the screen when doing a plot preview. I think plot preview must be printer driver dependent. But, I have set the printer driver to many different drivers and that has never seemed to affect how my normal, working, DCAD screen shows a drawing I am working on.

For instance with this text problem thing, I see the text aspect ratio problem on the DCAD screen, I see it in plot preview, and I see it in the PDF file produced, and on the paper prints produced. It works this way in my laptop that has this problem whether I have the DCAD printer set to an HP DesignJet plotter, a Lexmark letter sized printer, or to an Adobe PDF print driver.

Therefore, I think somehow it is a Windows problem.

Okay, David, I think I understand.

Hello Steve,

So, then, the screen display in DataCAD can be printer driver dependent?

Yes, it is. See the recent thread about maassive DataCAD problems.