Black lines not printing real black

[gccdesign]

Using Acad LT 2014, Win8. Using stb plot style. I also tried printing from my Win7 laptop, same result. Does not appear to be a Windows8 issue.

I am having something odd happening, I think it is new with 2014.

I noticed that my lines are not actually printing as black, but rather a very dark brown or almost black.

I have a stb style (Bk 1.00), Color = black, screening 100, and for some reason it's not really printing full black.

One layer (A-Elev-Maj) is set for color 132, but the plot style is Bk 1.00. It prints on my Canon Pixma and on pdf as very dark brown.

I have another layer (A-Fill-Bk) set to color 0,0,0, and also plot style Bk 1.00, and it prints dead black.

I tried making the A-Elev-Maj layer 0,0,0 and it still prints an "almost" black.

I checked in the stb file, it is really set to black. I tried 250, as well as 0,0,0 and go the same result.

Anyone else had this?

Attached pdf. You can look at the fence railing or the triangle chimney cap to see the comparison of the A-Fill-Bk which is printing actual black and surronding lines which are "almost" black. Zoom in and you can see it.

Thanks,

GChapp

[pendean]

Post a sample DWG file with the problem plus your STB file for review.

[maxim_k]

Hi,

I just checked your PDF in Adobe Illustrator and have found that all lines in it around the triangle chimney cap are absolutely black, except brown tile fill and the lines that compose tiles (actually they are also 100% black, but have 60% opacity assigned)

(selected lines highlighted in blue)

So could be that your printer doesn't print correctly.

Maxim

[gccdesign]

Maxim,

What you are seeing in Illustrator is what I intended, it is correct.

But that is not what I am seeing when printed to pdf as well as to my Canon Pixma printer.

Weird.

GChapp

[gccdesign]

Here is a wblock of part of the drawing.

Also the stb file. The forum would not let me upload a file with the stb extension. So I changed it to .doc. Change it back to .stb to use it.

I did some more testing this morning, and it seems to be the Autocad pdf driver.

I rechecked to make sure that the lines in question are set to bylayer, transparency at 0, etc.

Here is what I found.

There is a hatch for the roof tile that has an object setting of 40% transparency.

If I print the triangle part I am testing away from other objects it prints dead black.

If my print window includes any of the 40% hatch, then my lines that should be black print dark brown.

If my print window does not include any of the 40% hatch, then the lines that are supposed to be black print as dead black as they should.

I copied the hatch and my test triangle to a new location and changed the hatch object property to 0 transparency. Now if I print the triangle together with it, it prints black.

If in the printer dialog I turn off "plot transparency" it prints the black lines as black, even if the hatch in the print window has the object setting as 40% transparency.

So it appears that this might be an issue of  the Autocad pdf driver getting transparency settings confused between one obect and another.

As a work-around it looks like I will need to use screening instead of transparency. I will test it in other drawings as time goes on.

I tried turning off hardware acceleration, no change, it did not fix it.

It happens using the Autocad PDF print driver. I tried using the Adobe pdf driver, and it prints black regardless of the plot transparency setting or what is included in the print window. But the Adobe print driver gives me jaggy edges.

I tried opening the dwg in LT 2011 and got the same dark brown lines with the Autocad pdf driver.

GChapp

[pendean]

DRAWORDER in AutoCAD to fix it, or explore the linemerge option in the PC3 file you are using: you are only observing what happens when you allow your screened hatch to cover everything up perhaps.

Transparency plotting from AutoCAD leaves a lot to be desired.

[gccdesign]

I will explore this, but just to be clear, the hatch and the object that is supposed to be black but instead printing as dark brown do not overlap nor share the same location.

And the problem is affecting lines all over the drawing, not just in the area of the hatch.

It is not an overlay issue, it is a print driver applying a transparency setting to innappropriate objects or something like that.

GChapp