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#67331 by barry jones
Thu Oct 15, 2015 7:35 am
Just found that my plots are out of scale in one direction only. (i.e. an 8' x 8' box is measuring 8'-0 1/2" in "X" direction but is 8'-0" in "y" direction) Same issues on 2 HP Laserjet printers and an HP DesignJet plotter.

Anyone else having this issue?

Barry Jones R.A.
JDS, Inc.

DCAD user since 1989

DataCAD 17
Windows 7 - 64-Bit
6.00 GB
#67332 by MtnArch
Thu Oct 15, 2015 7:38 am
I'll start with the obvious - have you checked the settings in the printer driver (through Windoze Control Panel)?
#67333 by barry jones
Thu Oct 15, 2015 7:54 am
Drivers are all good.

I was made aware of this issue when one of my clients tried to scale a line on a pdf of a plot plan that I sent him, where @ 8th scale a 90'-0" line was measuring 90'-6". I originally assumed he printed using "fit to page", but that wasn't the case. So I'm having this issue in both the physical printing and the creation of pdf files ... output generation.

Any other suggestions?

Thanks.
Barry
#67334 by jimgoodman
Thu Oct 15, 2015 8:06 am
Are you seeing this with all plot scales or just one?
#67337 by jimgoodman
Thu Oct 15, 2015 8:43 am
I suppose the short term, smart ass response is that folks shouldn't be scaling the drawings to begin with.
This is definitely a puzzler :?
#67338 by Roger D
Thu Oct 15, 2015 8:49 am
I had a similar issue back in the old days graphite on mylar, come to find out the print boy was running the print through the printer the longer paper way (which takes 1.5 times to print), and the paper was stretching. The Senior drafter kept telling me I was drafting out of scale until I overlaid the mylar on the print and showed it to him, then he got off my a...

Could be the paper is stretching, see if you can rotate the sheet as it prints, and print that portion of the sheet that has the 90' line and see if it still is out of scale.
#67339 by MtnArch
Thu Oct 15, 2015 8:56 am
I just took a peak at my Canon plotter settings (through Control Panel) and there is a setting for scaling - beyond that I don't see anywhere else in DC that you could affect the printed X/Y enlargement or reduction.

Out of my paygrade at this point ....
#67341 by barry jones
Thu Oct 15, 2015 9:29 am
It is looking like an issue with my HP printers & plotters as I am also seeing a discrepancy plotting from CorelDraw where, at full scale, a 4" line was off by more than 1/16" and not in the direction that the paper is feeding.

I do understand that drawings should not be scaled, but I often do when designing (& modeling) and have never seen such a discrepancy. Also, I find that plot plans are often the drawings that will get scaled and 90' shouldn't scale 90'-6".

Thanks for all suggestions.
#67343 by joshhuggins
Thu Oct 15, 2015 1:39 pm
We found the same problem with the HP devices and their margins shrinking based on the Effective Plotting Area reported back to Datacad. Once we created custom paper sizes (the HP drivers only allowed 5 custom sizes :? ) to get the effective plotting area size back up to the actual paper size everything plotted to scale. We use PDF XChange to create our PDFs now and that has taken care of the problem for us now as it is all 1:1. And new original drawings should be able to be scaled reasonably today. We don't live in the dark ages of reprographics anymore folks. ;)
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#67351 by Ted B
Fri Oct 16, 2015 8:18 pm
For the last few years, I've been plotting .pdf "to scale" drawings to file first, then outputting the .pdf-file to the printer as "to scale". Originally it was just to have an accurate record-copy of the actual drawing-spage for my files, but I found that letting .pdf sort-out the printing issues seems to make for a more stable printing experience onto paper. And the printer-interface doesn't have to bother with the pen-widths or the colors...it just prints the file out as WYSIWYG on any quality device...and paper-size. And I haven't noticed -- nor received any complaints about -- distortions.

Typically I plot each individual drawing sheet to file as a01, a02, a03a, a03b, a04, etc...doesn't even really need to be that sheets page-number in the set. The using a .Pdf-file manager I combine all the drawings into one much-larger stable drawing file of the entire submittal; i.e. "2015 10-25 Oct Permit Drawings.pdf". Then I can print them myself, send them out to be printed, or e-mail them to a client and not worrying about any setting, fonts or set-up.
#67352 by jimgoodman
Sat Oct 17, 2015 9:01 am
Ted B wrote:For the last few years, I've been plotting .pdf "to scale" drawings to file first, then outputting the .pdf-file to the printer as "to scale". Originally it was just to have an accurate record-copy of the actual drawing-spage for my files, but I found that letting .pdf sort-out the printing issues seems to make for a more stable printing experience onto paper. And the printer-interface doesn't have to bother with the pen-widths or the colors...it just prints the file out as WYSIWYG on any quality device...and paper-size. And I haven't noticed -- nor received any complaints about -- distortions.

Typically I plot each individual drawing sheet to file as a01, a02, a03a, a03b, a04, etc...doesn't even really need to be that sheets page-number in the set. The using a .Pdf-file manager I combine all the drawings into one much-larger stable drawing file of the entire submittal; i.e. "2015 10-25 Oct Permit Drawings.pdf". Then I can print them myself, send them out to be printed, or e-mail them to a client and not worrying about any setting, fonts or set-up.


We use the exact same routine. We gave up trying to maintain a large format printer years ago choosing to invest on multiple large monitors for drawing review, etc. instead. Throw in a projector for presentations and we are still thousands of dollars ahead of the game.

We do have an 11x17 color printer that works good for check prints when absolutely necessary.
#67513 by Jeff Stoutenborough
Mon Nov 09, 2015 3:03 am
I have just "upgraded" from DCAD 11 to DCAD 17 and found my output (both direct plots from DataCAD and PDF plots from Acrobat) are to scale in one direction and out of scale in the other direction, by the same amount as Mr. Jones reports; about 3" over 44'.

While the old "prints should not be scaled" line from the old blueprint stretch days is reasonably true for plans, etc., I have used the plotter for decades to create full scale paper templates used for constructing accurate stair stringers, furniture pieces, and other items. I have in the past been able to create accurate output of my drawings using the plotter and really don't see why I should have to go backwards with my drafting tools. With every previous version of DataCAD (ver. 3 through 11 - I've used it since the '80s) the prints have come out exactly to scale in both X and Y directions. I don't find the inaccurate output to be acceptable.

I'm sure there is something that can be identified, especially since the problem did not exist in past versions of DCAD. Any assistance would be appreciated.

Jeffrey Stoutenborough, Architect
DataCAD 17.04.00.07(PE)
Windows 7 64 bit
HP DesignJet 500 plotter

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