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PDF batch plotting in background does not work - PLEASE HELP!!!!!

73 REPLIES 73
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Message 1 of 74
linnea.lukic
8005 Views, 73 Replies

PDF batch plotting in background does not work - PLEASE HELP!!!!!

Hi,

 

Don't know if anyone is having the same issue, batch plotting in the background used to work when we had AutoCAD Electrical 2013 installed on Windows XP 32-bit machine.  After haivng AE 2014 installed on Windows 7 64-bit OS and the background plotting has STOPPED working.  On right hand corner of the screen will stay "Job in Progress" for hours and nothing is printed.  Please see attached image.

 

As we don't have any spare stations to manage the PDF batch plotting (I'm talking about more than 200 sheet per project) therefore the background plotting is very important to us.

 

CAN ANY EXPERTS HERE PLEASE HELP???  The issue is drivng us crazy!!!!! Smiley Frustrated

 

Thank you!!

73 REPLIES 73
Message 61 of 74
haiqing
in reply to: haiqing

Hi all, 

 

Sorry that your work is affected by this problem, we would like to help but without a consistent reproduce step, it is a bit difficult for us to start... 

 

Looking at the posts, I feel that there could be multiple causes lead to this problem.
1. Settings of ACADE/ACAd (Profile is one of them, some user mentioned STARTUP sysvar)
2. Project specific setting (If your problem does not happen in sample project such as WDDEMO and IECDEMO)
3. Other products/settings in the same machine (Autodesk/Non-Autodesk products, OS settings)

 

So far, we only know that a corrupted profile (or profile with certain setting) may cause this issue. We have not identified any specific setting may cause this yet. The workaround is to use a clean profile when doing background publish. 

 

If you still see this problem in ACADE 2015, it will be helpful if you can try to publish the sample projects in background with default ACADE settings. If that is working, then it will be helpful find the difference between your publish and default publish in terms of ACADE setting or project setting, and that difference may cause the issue.

 

If it is not working even with default setting and sample project, we probably need to focus on 3 which is the external environment and how that is different. For example, we have tried scenarios such as ACADE with Vault and Inventor but it works fine. In this case, we will need more information of your machine set up and products installed (other than ACADE 2015). 

 

Please let me know if you need any further clarity on this, I will try my best to help out here. 

 

P.S. I know this should be obvious but just to state it explictly here that the Batch Plot workflow is referring to use the "PUBLISH to PDF/DWF/DWFx (for 2014 is PUBLISH to DWF)" option (right click on project or the button on project manager) to publish the project. 



Haiqing Wang
AutoCAD Electrical Team
Message 62 of 74
linnea.lukic
in reply to: haiqing

Hi Haiqing,

 

Thank you for your reply.

 

So if you have already identified the potential causes, why couldn't you try to fix it?  

 

When I started this thread I was hoping that there are only a few special cases where the background plotting does not work, but it looks to me that there are a lot more people are suffering the same problem!!!  Can't Autodesk take this more seriously?  My manager is seriously considering using other CAD package as I can't convince him that ACADE is the right software for us.

 

Thank you again for your help.

 

Message 63 of 74
haiqing
in reply to: linnea.lukic

HI Linnea,

 

Sorry that if I did not express myself clearly. I do not know exactly what will cause the issue yet. From our side, we have tried with various settings of publishing with different projects, also tried to publish in environment such as ACADE + Vault + Inventor but still cannot reproduce the problem. The only case we know is that the profile may get "corrupted" but still do not know which part is corrupted. . 

 

I suggest above 3 options hoping to get some information around those areas to find out what exactly is the difference between your (and others') workflows and my workflow so that we can try to find out the real cause (maybe is a sysvar change or a specific type of project/drawing or may be even combination of those) 

 

May I suggest you to try out ACADE 2015 to see if you still hit this problem? I have tried to import the profile you sent to me earlier (which is problematic in 2014) to ACADE 2015 and the publishing in background is successful.

 

 

 



Haiqing Wang
AutoCAD Electrical Team
Message 64 of 74
wlaforge
in reply to: linnea.lukic

For me on AutoCAD 2015 changing my STARTUP value to 0 worked.

 

I changed my start up to 2 recently to get only the welcome screen and no new dwg every time, but I was unable to plot in the background successfully. I don't know if it resulted from some combination of my settings but changing the start up value helped me.

Message 65 of 74
linnea.lukic
in reply to: wlaforge

Hi wlaforge,

 

I've changed STARTUP from 2 to 0 but unfortunately that did not make the background plotting working.

 

Interestingly, my issue could be our company "Profile" we use.  This profile was created back in 2012 version and because it has all our customised icons, shortcuts...etc so everytime we installed a new upgrade we would import this profile.  So after 2015 installation I did not change any settings or importing any profiles and the background plotting works fine but as soon as the profile was imported the background plotting has stopped working.

 

I still don't know if the profile would be the issue but in your case it is the STARTUP setting.  I am puzzled because there seem to be many different issues causing the background plotting not working.  I have no idea what to do next. Smiley Sad

 

 

Message 66 of 74
sniktun
in reply to: linnea.lukic

Is it really necessary to plot in the background? I can't do it either so I just don't bother now. It means that even for the largest files I have to wait about 1 minute while It plot's on my screen. Not exactly a hardship to wait.

 

Every piece of software has problems, just accept that AutoCAD can't plot in the background

Message 67 of 74
linnea.lukic
in reply to: sniktun

Hi sniktun,

 

Thank you for your reply.  Yes it is absolutely neccessary to plot at the background for me as oue average project has around 300 sheets, and we normally plot single-sheet PDFs as well as multi-sheet PDF; so it means we have to stop working for about 1 hour for each project.  So it is very important for background plotting to be working again.

 

I understand Autodesk is having trouble replicate the problems but if is does not get sorted soon we will be thinking about looking at alternative CAD package.

 

Message 68 of 74
linnea.lukic
in reply to: haiqing

Hi Haiqin,

 

I have installed AE 2015 and the background plotting does work without changing the profile to our company profile.  As soon as I import our profile the background plotting has stopped working.  So I will create a new profile from 2015 to aviod this.

 

Another problem we have with background plotting is the single-sheet PDFs.  We've been having the plotted sheets missing from 2014 version, and was informed that the issue was fixed in 2015 version.  But just found out that sheets still go missing when background plotting in 2015.

 

I don't know what to do next?  Please help.

Message 69 of 74
haiqing
in reply to: linnea.lukic

Hi Linnea,

 

May I check with you

1. Is this missing PDF behaviour reproducible in AutoCAD Electrical 2015? I assume you are using Publish to PDF/DWF/DWFx functionality there, is my assumption correct?

2. Are the missing sheets consistent or random in each publish operation? I.e. let's say if the 2nd sheet is missing in first attempt, if you try again will sheet 2 still be missing?  This probably can help to narrow down if this is a project specific problem. 

 

If you do not mind, you can send me a sample project which you encounter this problem, I will try to reproduce the problem from my end to see if I can narrow down the cause. 

 

My email address is Haiqing.Wang@autodesk.com

 

For the background plot part, please let me know if you still hit the problem after creating profile in 2015. If this problem comes up again, that means some steps during the profile creation may lead to this problem.

 



Haiqing Wang
AutoCAD Electrical Team
Message 70 of 74
emc2kh
in reply to: haiqing

I am running ACA 2013 on WIN7 64bit and this problem started when I changed the STARTUP variable from 0 to 2 just like a couple others have said. I changed it back to 0, closed/opened ACA and the problem was resolved.

Message 71 of 74
mitch5GZ7L
in reply to: linnea.lukic

try setting "startup" parameter from 2 to 0 to get background plotting/publishing to work....... type startup at the command prompt to change
Message 72 of 74
cbir.redbird
in reply to: linnea.lukic

That's because Autodesk is run by a load of wankers who have no idea how to design a proper CAD system. They could learn a lot by going back to the way Microstation used to run back in the early 1980's: Now those people really knew how to programme. They weren't obtained from companies where they design Mario games etc. They worked for NASA. When it comes to Autocad, the mind boggles!

Message 73 of 74
linnea.lukic
in reply to: cbir.redbird

cbir.redbird,

 

You are probably right, lol!  Are you having the same problem?  I haven't tried it on the 2016 version and not sure if AutoDesk has finally fixed the problem Smiley Tongue

 

Message 74 of 74
cbir.redbird
in reply to: linnea.lukic

After 6 hours of screwing around I finally got it to work. This is what I discovered: You have to create a single file to plot first before you can batch plot. Batch plot has to look at the settings created in the first file in order to plot the rest. This is what I did: I set up a single file as if I was going to single plot it from the plotter I wanted. I then named the file 'Plot to Printer.dwg', (any name you like will do), and put it in the root directory where all my other CAD directories were, (easier to find).

 

Then I selected 'batch plot'. and added all the files I wanted to plot. The icon above the blank area on the extreme left is what you use to add them.

 

Then I selected all files under 'page setup' on the right. One of the options is 'default' which is probably set to 'none'. Instead select 'import'. This is the point where I got screwed time and time again before. I mean what do you import, and where do you import it from? At this point I think Autodesk expects you to pull out your crystal ball?

 

Well you give the path to the file you have already set up, and it labels all the files so that they plot with exactly the same settings that you want. It should now say: 'Imported: (followed by your settings file name)'. Hit 'Publish', and you are done. Unbelievable isn't it?Smiley Very Happy

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