Window plot area offset when publishing

[Chriss_s]

I'm having a really annoying issue with publish. The window plot area seems to be moving around randomly creating PDF's where some pages are not centered correctly, and some even missing completely. 

When I go and try to plot the drawing manually using "plot" and selecting "window" from the plot area button, one can clearly see that it's offset from zero coordinate point (0,0), which it shouldn't be (see attached picture for clarification). It does not matter if the window is corrected or not, using publish the offset is still there. 

I'm using a custom made page setup file with window plotting area and plotting from model space if it makes any difference. 

I could use extents also when plotting, but the problem is I need to place random components and stuff at the side of drawings from time to time, and that will also offset the drawing when printing. 

[Icemanau]

A real quick question first off which will allow us to help you better...

What release of ACADE are you using?

Including this information in your questions will lead to quicker answers as each release of ACADE has some major differences from the prior releases.

To track down a problem or to answer a How-To question requires us to know which release we should be looking at and as much other information as possible (workflow which causes the problem as an example).

I know in the 2018 release, that this problem occurred, however, I have yet to see it in the 2019 release.

My workaround with 2018 was to change the PDF Preset selected for each print.

First print, the selection would 'DWG to PDF'. I would change that to 'AutoCAD PDF (High Quality Print)'.

Next print I would change it back to 'Dwg to PDF'.

By doing this, I had no problems with the sheet size/location in the PDF.

Regards Brad

[Chriss_s]

Hi,

I'm using Electrical 2018. 

The workflow is normal publish to PDF with a custom page setup. 

Picture of the page setup and publish window attached. Custom page setup with window plot area. 

So everything looks fine, and when checking the plot window in the affected drawings, it seems to be on the right place, but when plotting using publish and page setup the page is shifted. 

[quentin.contreras]

@Chriss_s can you provide another screen capture? I would like to see the Publish window showing all details.

[Icemanau]

This does sound like the problem I encountered with 2018...

Have you tried the workaround in my first reply. I couldn't find any resolution to the problem when it first appeared for me but a little experimenting showed that what I tried worked to get the required results.

It's not a setting problem as far as I can tell but a problem within either the PC3 files or something in the plot coding of ACAD itself.

Regards Brad

[Chriss_s · Accepted solution]

Thank you all for the help. The issue has been resolved. 

Found this when googling: Plot or preview shows incorrect area of drawing when plotting limits

And indeed this was the problem all along. The TARGET variable had somehow been changed in a few drawings and caused the pages to shift when plotting.