Adjusting plottable area only makes the plotter print a longer sheet

[calafragilistic]

Hi all, I'm using 2008 and trying to get one side of my plots to be 1/2" from the edge of the paper (from one of the ends, not the sides). When plotting from R14, our plotter understands just fine and prints a standard ARCH D sheet just the way we want it. With 2008, our standard sheet template sits outside the dashed line that indicates plottable area.

 

I think that autoCAD thinks that the printer can't print that close to the edge, but obviously it can. I've gone into the 'modify paper sizes' options and adjusted the bottom margin to allow enough space for the plot. Plot preview looks fine and nothing is getting cut off, but when I actually print, the printer just prints an extra inch of paper past the margin I redefined so I end up with a sheet that is 24 x 37 and the edge of the plot is still not 1/2" from the edge of the paper like I need it to be.

 

How do I fix this? We are trying to move from R14 to 2008 (and eventually 2014) as the office standard and this is the last hurdle that is baffling us.

[ReMark]

I'm sure you've tested this so a reply should be quick.

 

What happens when you stretch your template so it actually sits inside the dashed lines that represent the limits of the printable area?

 

Oh, and have you updated your plotter drivers too?

[calafragilistic]

When I don't mess with the margin sizes, the page plots to the correct size regardless of whether everything is inside the dashed lines or not (things outside the margins don't plot obviously).

 

Drivers are updated.

 

One more thing I noticed is that blacks aren't being plotted as black as with R14, and we just got new cartridges so it's not the ink running out. Is there a DPI setting that I can ramp up?

[ReMark]

Do you plot Extents, Display, Window, other?

 

Do you plot to "Fit"?

 

Do you enable centering of a plot?

 

Unless you edited the CTB or STB file in some manner I see no reason why changing from r14 to 2008 would change how the color black is plotted. Just makes no sense.

[Dana W]

I've had similar sorts of problems with LT 2008 in the office where I do contract work, and some not so similar.

 

Plotting the 'Layout' never worked when plotting to the default sheet size our title block xref was designed for, which was Arch D. One edge or the other would run outside of the printable area by about 3/8", usually the upper 36" side border would go off page, and it didn't matter whether we plotted to the hard copy plotter or to pdf. The title block had a frame (On a 'no plot' layer) drawn exactly the size of the Arch D paper with the actual border lines and viewports all set within the printable area. The xref was inserted at 0,0 in paperspace, using the lower left corner of the non printing frame.

 

There was no way I could correct the printable area situation without plotting 'Window', and checking the 'Center the plot' box. That combination always fixed it, and the resulting prints were plotted to scale. >

 

Our KIP 7000 is not capable of deciding to extend the page by any amount when encountering what it thinks is an oversized drawing, it just lets the leftovers fall off the edge onto the floor.

 

I noticed that once I selected Window, and checked the 'Center the plot' box, the plot scale would change to 1:0.98 (or thereabouts). This meant that something was telling the plotter driver that my image was 0.2+- bigger than the paper.

 

The plot offset on the layout dialog was always x=0.0 and y=0.0.

The plot offset relativity selection on the plot and publish tab in Options, was always set to Relative to Edge of paper. (since our xref frame was 24'x36' and inserted @ 0,0.)

 

Any one of the factors above might have affected your plotting. I don't think I can nail any one of them down for you, except for the fact that this all started going haywire when we started using a plot stamp.

 

You know that there is a difference between Arch D, and Arch Expand D sheets, right? I can't look at it at the moment, but I think the "Expand" version printable area goes all the way out to the absolute limits of the printable area for the plotter, and the regular one is set at something like 1/2" inside the edge of the paper. It has been a long time that I had to check that out. I could be completely wrong.

 

Also on occasion, I would open a saved drawing to find all the layouts somehow having been set back to 'Portrait' orientation over night by the elves. That office has never used Portrait in my experience. That one, we have never figured out.