Cannot output to A3

[westredd]

I wonder if anyone can help. I am in IT support and am trying to help someone who uses autocad with a print problem.

Basically they are trying to send a print job out to A3 to a network HP 8000DN printer. When you select A3 from the drop down menu, the graphic which shows the paper size doesnt change to A3. It remains at A4, so you can only print to A4. I can print from other applications to A3, but not autocad.

I set up an HP 5000 on the computer and pointed the job to that instead, which works fine (the graphic changes to A3 when you select A3 from drop down list).. I have set NT permissions so that the user has total contol over the printers, but still no joy. He used to be able to send A3 jobs from autocad to this 8000 printer, but it just stopped working. I have deleted and then setup the printer, tried everything but no luck. Does anyone know anything else I can try? I noticed that there is a plotter manager part of autocad with printer icons similar to the windows ones. What are they for? Can I do anything there to help me?

The user is on Windows XP and uses Autocad LT 2004.

Cheers

MFD

 

[TCARPENTER]

Hmmm...

Usually when dealing with most CAD packages, it’s not usually a matter of "if" you'll have to reinstall the package but more of "when" you'll have to reinstall. AutoCAD/AutoCAD LT is easily the biggest offender in this arena. I thought maybe you had a printer driver issue, but if they were able to before and now suddenly can't, make me think its time to reinstall AutoCAD LT.

You didn't mention it in your original post so just to be sure all the bases are covered:

Make sure you have the latest AutoCAD LT service pack installed.

Check the service pack of Windows, if you have just installed the latest, I have heard there are going to be problems with the XP's next service pack and AutoCAD - (haven't been able to confirm this yet though).

As to your question of the plotter manager function, if you haven't already set-up printers/plotters through this within AutoCAD LT - you definitely should. It’s a fairly easy thing to do, just follow the bouncing ball, and it'll lead you through the process. These give AutoCAD better control over output to printers and I usually recommend using these over system printers because of this. They may or may not solve your problem though.

HTH
Todd

 

[westredd]

thanks for your help.. Will probably for the re-install,

MFD