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Plot Transparency on creates Blank page

5 REPLIES 5
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Message 1 of 6
CAusen
1621 Views, 5 Replies

Plot Transparency on creates Blank page

I am trying to plot somelthing with a transparent hatch. I set the hatch to transparent, shows up fine in model space. I go to plot (either to paper or pdf doesn't matter) in the plot setting I check "Plot Transparency" print preview shows everything fine. When I print I get a blank page.
 
I have set TRANSPARENCYDISPLAY to 1. Not sure what else to try.
 
Anyone else have this happening?
 
Craig
Civil 3D 2012
5 REPLIES 5
Message 2 of 6
john.mckenzie
in reply to: CAusen

Are you getting any errors reported 

Message 3 of 6
CAusen
in reply to: john.mckenzie

I didn't see anything before I left work. If I see anything tomorrow I will post it.

 

 

Message 4 of 6
CAusen
in reply to: CAusen

No errors when I plot.

 

But found out when I unchecked plot transparent it will plot my entire view frame just with my hatched areas not transparent so don't know if this maybe a bug.

 

Craig

Message 5 of 6
john.mckenzie
in reply to: CAusen

I often find I will get a blank page when trying to plot to pdf.

 

transparency forces the plot to be plotted as raster as opposed to vector. This increases processing time significantly as well as complexity.

 

I have 3 different PDF drivers

 

Standard AdobePDF

DWG to PDF

CutePDFwriter

 

I have listed these in my order of preference.

 

Sometimes Standard Adobe will result in a blank page plot. when that happens I fall back to DWGtoPDF. I rarely use CutePDFwriter.

 

So, my recommendations.

Go into the settings for the plotter that you are using and see if you can dumb down the plot at all. Try decreasing DPI settings and anything that would generally decrease plot quality and see if you can get the plot file to a managable state for your plotter.

 

If you are sending straight to a physical plotter, try sending to pdf and then send the pdf to the plotter.

 

Anyway, that is where I would start.

Message 6 of 6

The reason why I suggest dumbing down DPI etc. is because many folks have settings up as hign as 1200dpi. While this might be required for photorealistic or marketing material, engineering plots generally produce quite well at 300 dpi. this alone will improve managability of raster plots by a pretty big factor.

 

It is not a bug that you get a blank page. It is a fact of life when working with transparencies. It makes the plotting process more intense on the plotter/plot drivers and sometimes they cannot handle what you are asking them to do.

 

but when you need them, transparency looks oh so sweet.

 

Make draworder and greyscales the core of your workflow and save transparency for those special presentation needs because it will sometimes be a plot problem. If not no plot, then, slow plot at best.

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