Plotting orientation

[Anonymous]

I am having trouble plotting in the correct orientation. My current setup is AutoCAD 2017, Windows 10,  Adobe Acrobat Reader DC, and an HP Designjet 510 24" wide plotter, printing on a 24" roll of paper.

I usually print 15 - 20 18x24 pages per model, about twice a month. The settings I have had success with in the past are shown in the screenshot below. The trouble I am having is consistently repeating this success on the next batch of prints, and I cannot for the life of me figure out where things are going wrong.  Initially, the work around I found that worked was printing as a PDF, and then sending the PDF to the plotter. It took several attempts to find the right combination of settings to get the print to print in the correct orientation. Sometimes when I try to print the next batch it will work fine, but other times it will revert back to printing in the wrong orientation. Then I fight with it for several attempts before it finally works correctly again. I've talked with a few friends and colleagues who have all had similar issues, and their response is always "just print the pages in the wrong orientation and cut them afterwards." This is such an aggravating and unproductive work around, and I would really like to find a solution before I roll this plotter down a flight of stairs.

I have been fighting with HP plotters and AutoCAD since the mid 90's. Is this a problem with the plotter, and should I replace it? Does anyone have recommendations on other plotters?

Thanks,

Kevin

[pendean · Accepted solution]

Looking at your image, you don't like to plot to a proper or actual scale, is that correct? In your PDF print, you are "shrinking", aka plotting to a useless scale.

FWIW 99% of the time the reason most HP plotter rotate a page is because you've chosen a sheet size that is too big. FULL BLEED is an example in your image on the PLOT command pop-up. You plotter cannot handle FULL BLEED without an autorotate, so you should be using ARCH C "regular". And shrink your titleblock so it fits within those margins.

Quit fighting your plotter's paper margins and it will stop autortating the plots.

Good luck.

[gargrizz]

I am having the same issue, and this is not a user error.  I have had the same issue with AutoCAD and printing directly to the HP plotter, or to a PDF, then sending that to the HP plotter.

Today I had several different dwgs to plot. I made them all into Arch C-size PDFs and sent them to the plotter using the same settings, one after another. (The preview looked correct on the first attempt.) The first sheet plotted correctly, but the second and third did not, and I attempted to rotate them on the Adobe plot screen using all 3 options (portrait, landscape, and auto rotate). None of the options worked correctly.  I do not plot to a scale, since that usually doesn't matter for what I am doing. I use fit to paper in the AutoCAD print dialog. 

This may not be an AutoCAD issue, but it is indeed real, and very annoying.