autocad lt 2004 printing off center

[sciophyte]

Hi there, I am printing to an HP printer (can't recall the printer model number off the top of my head) it is not a plotter but can be used as one, perhaps a 4500 or 4100. But the issue is when printing a drawing from autocad, i set up all the positioning as i want it on the page. (printing a test plot for the positioning shows the image should be aligned in the right place), but when actually printing the drawing it prints on the top left of the page. I could manually position is using the center and specifying values, but this gets very tedious if you have 30 drawings to print off for quick presentations and such. is there a fix for this? or perhaps an option i'm missing? i've tried both pcl5e and pcl6 drivers and they have the same result...any help is appreciated, thanks.

 

[TCARPENTER]

Try this:

Under the "Plot Settings" tab on the plot dialog box, locate the "Plot offset" frame, near the bottom center, and make sure "Center the plot" option is checked, (just let AutoCAD calculate the offset values) and see if that solves your problem.

HTH

Todd

 

[sciophyte]

i do use the center option and don't touch the offset, i position the plot using the paper margins, as i said the test plot prints a square with crosshairs and that is in the exact position that i want it, it just doesn't print the same positioning when printing an actual plot.

 

[TCARPENTER]

Are you scaling to fit, or plotting to a known scale? If you are plotting to fit, even Autodesk won't guarantee how the "fit" algorythm calculates. When plotting to fit, AutoCAD uses either the vertical measurement, or the horizontal measurement (not both) and does so based on what it "thinks" will best fill the page - often times its wrong.

Another possibility, don't use oversize sheet sizes when plotting, for some reason, almost every plotter/printer seems to "choke" on these sizes - I'm assuming someone must be successful using these sizes but I don't know anybody.

Finally, are you using a system printer or a pc3 file. PC3 files give you much better control over your output than using system printers.

HTH

Todd

 

[mechfoolids]

Hello. I appear to be having a very similar issue if not exactly the same one as you are. I've set up all the paper sizes and even played with the paper margins, however, despite the fact that when in Full Preview mode the drawings should print out perfectly, the tops and bottoms are cut off. Whether or not I use the Page Offset option makes no difference as it appears to be a paper margin problem or some thing that is inherent in the layouts themselves. The dashed line in Layout mode apparently is the end of the normal paper space, and even though the drawings are within this window, it still won't print. I am not using scaled to fit, but rather 1:1. If your problem was fixed, perhaps you could tell me how, otherwise, thanks for the help.

 

[sciophyte]

not using scaling to fit and i have tried customizing a pc3 config with no change, this is trying to print to regular 8.5x11 paper, i have no further use for this, couldn't figure it out but people who needed it have moved on to other projects, i think it's just a bug in somenoe elses shiz.