AutoCAD 2018 not plotting in black and white

[laurenb1]

A few weeks ago we started seeing most of our drawings not plotting to black and white on our plotter or PDF but print fine to a smaller printer.  At first I thought it was a True Color issue, but it's not.  If I change all of the line weights in the xref and the main drawing to be default, I can get it to print in black and white, unless something is a block, then I have to explode the block. None of this should be necessary though as I can print it to a small format printer and it is just fine. It seems the issue is just with the plotter and when plotting pdfs.  I think I have tried every setting I could think of in the page setup manager and nothing seems to help. I've searched the forums and tried all the suggested solutions, still nothing.  Has anyone encountered anything like this before?

[john.vellek]

Hi @laurenb1,

I am glad you have checked the True Color possibility.  Is it possible to share a sample file with a page setup applied as well as include your plot style? I would like to see if there is something I can suggest to get this working properly for you.

What plotter are you using?

Please select the Accept as Solution button if my post solves your issue or answers your question.

[laurenb1]

[john.vellek]

Hi @laurenb1,

When I open your test fit drawing I see that you are using CAP. I don't have an object enabler for CAP so I am not sure that I can troubleshoot this entirely.  I did run Audit and Purge, set up a plot to PDF and it turned out fine using the monochrome plot style.

You indicated that this is only happening when you use your Kip plotter?  Can you try printing to the Windows system driver for the KIP and not the PC3 to see if that makes any difference?

Please select the Accept as Solution button if my post solves your issue or answers your question.

[laurenb1]

I was misinformed, apparently we have no issue printing to a pdf. We do use the system driver for the plotter.  This primarily affects xrefs, if that sheds any light?

[javier.zavala]

I sort of experience this problem before I had a person told me they couldn't print black and white to the plotter machine. the only thing I did was change the plot style table (pen assignments) to our company settings which makes our plotter print in black and white. I will recommend changing the plot style to a setting your plotter accepts hoped I helped  I also attached the file we use for my settings as well. 

[john.vellek]

Hi @laurenb1

Can you plot this one that you have attached and then attach a photo of what it looks like?

Which version of AutoCAD are you using? Are you certain that no one has modified the standard Monochrome .ctb?

[john.vellek]

Hi @laurenb1,

Have you considered trying to change all the xref layer colors (not in the xref but in your host file)?  This might be a nice and quick way to resolve this kind of issue.  I have also attached my CTB file from AutoCAD 2018. YOu can try using it on one of your workstations to see if it fixes the color issue.

[javier.zavala]

I use my settings as mention above. 

[laurenb1]

This is what it looks like when it prints to the plotter.  It usually just affects the xrefs  but occasionally it will also do it with objects in the drawing.  I have found fixes to force a single drawing to work, but this is affecting multiple (but not all) drawings and multiple users, so I was hoping there was a setting we were missing so we don't have to manipulate layers on every drawing this is happening with.  It just started happening about 3 weeks ago and we have no idea why.  Older drawings seem unaffected.

[laurenb1]

I tried your monochrome file and got the same result. 😞

[john.vellek]

Hi @laurenb1,

The PDF to me looks monochrome but perhaps the background is the part you are referring to.

One temporary workaround would be to print/publish to PDF and then print the PDF on the plotter. It would be interesting to see if this results in a true B/W print.

Since this works fine in PDFs and on the small printer, I think you need to focus on the plotter driver itself.  Has it recently been updated?  Have  you gone through the settings to see if you can force B/W or turn off dithering perhaps?

I will see if I can install the KIP driver on my side to possibly duplicate the settings in order to make further suggestions.

Please select the Accept as Solution button if my post solves your issue or answers your question.

[john.vellek]

Hi @laurenb1,

Can you check in the properties of the plotter to see if you can set the color mode to BlackWhite?  I would like to know if this forces everything to be monochrome.

Please select the Accept as Solution button if my post solves your issue or answers your question.

[jayhar]

Hi,

Specifies whether plot styles applied to object and layers are plotted. (Plot with plot style)

Find the attachments....

[cadffm]

@jayhar  - Check the picture of answer#3

@laurenb1

The only thing what i see is: You use the unfavorable lineweight 0.00 for (only) the XRef-Layer,

unfavorable because 0.00 is on every printer different, it means "so small you can print".

Perhaps your KIP can print very smal lines and thats the result..

Please change the lweight of Xreflayers in your  "Aetna_High Point_3rd Fl_FURN TEST FIT.dwg" to 0.25 and try it again.

Please note: Your are useing lineweight "default", thats also unfavorable because the 'default' value is not stored in your file,

it is a registry/=profile variable and default can be 0.25 for you, but if i open the file default is 0.70, sounds not very good!?

LWDEFAULT [F1]

Hopes my crystal ball have a well day.

[laurenb1]

Yes, it's set to black and white and it does print other things from other programs, test pages and even other Autocad drawings in strictly black and white.  We had updated our plotter driver with no luck, we are looking into the software for the machine to see if it solves the problem. The plotter company is baffled too.

[john.vellek]

Hi @laurenb1,

Have you made any progress on  this issue?  Did you try @cadffm's suggestion with  altering lineweights? ( I am guessing your other drawings use the same ones but...)  

If you print to PDF and then send it to the plotter, does it then behave as expected?

Please select the Accept as Solution button if my post solves your issue or answers your question.