AutoCAD not printing

[pollyf]

Hello, 

We recently got a new Xerox Workcentre 7835 in our office and one of our employees cannot print from AutoCAD. It would print but there would only be drawings on the 1st 1/4 of the paper, and then the rest is blank.... no one else has the problem and he is able to print with other programs just fine. Other employees can print from Autocad without a problem. They all have the same version and same Windows program. 

Does anyone know what the reason could be? 

Thanks for your help, 

[Alfred.NESWADBA]

Hi,

>> and he is able to print with other programs just fine

So if he plots this drawing to a PDF and then the PDF to the printer .. does that work (really that drawing he tested!)?

- alfred -

[pollyf]

Yes, it works when he makes it into a pdf, but it doesn't work from dwg format, or

i mean it only prints 1/4 of the page and the rest is blank..

[dmfrazier]

"...no one else has the problem... Other employees can print from Autocad without a problem."

Just to be sure we are comparing "apples to apples", have other users successfully printed the same DWG file?

Also, does this happen to the affected user regardless of which DWG is printed?

[Alfred.NESWADBA]

Hi,

Let the user create a new PC3-file using the plotter manager and then print with that new PC3.

Additionally I would try to login with another user-account to that workstations and try plotting again. After that you can see if it's user specific or workstation specific.

... or drawing specific if you follow dmfrazier's request.

- alfred -

[pollyf]

Thanks for all the advice, we have narrowed down the problem being the "Plot transparency" option when we print on AutoCAD.

When the plot transparency is checked, it only prints a very tiny bit of the drawing.. but when the plot transparency is unchecked, the drawing prints but the section we want transparent is not...

After checking with the other employee who uses Autocad, she actually has the same problem as well.. so it's not just one user..


Does anyone know why the problem is?

Thanks,

[Alfred.NESWADBA]

Hi,

>> Does anyone know why the problem is?

Plotting with transparency means that AutoCAD can't send vectors to the plotter, AutoCAD has first to render to a raster-image and after that is finished AutoCAD sends the raster-image to the printer.

To do that AutoCAD needs more memory on the local workstation and it needs more memory on the printer, either of those is the reason why it fails. One option might be possible to reduce the memory requirement is to reduce the resolution within the printer-/plotter driver, so if you have the option e.g. to reduce the resolution from let's say 600dpi to 300dpi the memory needed would go down by 75%.

- alfred -

[pollyf]

We had reduced the resolution to 300 dpi and 150 dpi and it still didn't work...

Our old copier that was able to print transparency has a memory of 1GB, page memory of 512 MB. We can still print transparencies on it when we plug this copeir back in.

Our new Xerox is 2GB, page memory of 1GB... but it is failing to work...

Thanks,

[Alfred.NESWADBA]

Hi,

>> Our new Xerox is 2GB, page memory of 1GB... but it is failing to work...

Depends also from compression and color-depth (and maybe alpha channel) that is used for creating/transferring the raster information.

I would try to

a) search for other drivers, if that does not help then

b) you might use the workaround for plotting including transparency to print to DWF and then from DWF to the printer (PDF is also possible, but I do prefer DWF).

- alfred -

[boesiii]

I am having the same problem.  Has anyone found a solution.

[will]

We have the same problem, and unchecking Plot transparency works. We need to print transparent hatches unfortunately. Plus it doesn't matter if we have transparent objects in the dwg or not, we still get the 1/2 inch of plot then blank paper. ACAD 2015 and 2016 - Xerox 7830 brand new printer.

[boesiii]

I was able to fix the problem by changing the driver options, specifically disable print optimization and turn off image enhancement, see below.

[wispoxy]

Please make sure your printer drivers and adobe drivers are updated.

[brandyrodriguez]

That worked, thank you.