Extremely Slow Plot Menu Loading

Whenever I click to plot a drawing using the plot menu, it takes at least a minute and a half for the window to appear. I frequently get messages saying "such and such printer could not be found", however, none of the printers mentioned were EVER connected to this machine.

I've checked my plotters folder (C:\Documents and Settings\####\Application Data\Autodesk\AutoCAD LT 2009\R14\enu\Plotters) and it only lists the regular plotter files (dwg to pdf, etc) and none of these exotic printers that are mentioned in the error messages.

Get the messages fairly often, but not always, and the time taken for the plot window to open is always the same, so the problem might not even be related to the missing printers.

Has anyone else experienced this problem?

Is there an easy way to print .dwgs outside of the CAD interface, as that might help?

Thanks

Almost certainly related to missing printers. Check your system printers also.

Also if there are shortcuts in your AutoCAD plotters directory, any PC3 files in the shortcut destination are evaluated also.

I told ACAD to hide system printers and it is suddenly much faster. Unfortunately I don't have access to those printers now. I tried to set up a plot file for our Canon iR2025 UFRII LT, but I mistakenly chose to use a Postscript driver and the printer spat out a bunch of...postscript.

How do I find out what settings to use with this printer? I can't find it in the list of supported plotters.

About the missing printers: could it be that the drawings have plot settings associated with them from previous machines?

Thanks for your response.

Drivers for the multifunction iR2025, as with most printers, are dependent upon the OS you're running. A user's guide and instructional manual is most likely available for download from the manufacturer's website.

Is your plotter the one selected in Windows as the DEFAULT or not?

Wm.

Look what I found on another forum:

It woks fine to us.

http://cadablog.blogspot.ro/2008/05/quick-tip-slow-printing.html

Quick Tip – Slow Printing

If you are using AutoCAD 2008 or even AutoCAD 2009, you might have noticed the printing seems to move a little bit slower. Here is a quick tip on speeding up your printing.

AutoCAD 2008 introduced to us BACKGROUND PROCESSING for plotting. The theory behind it is that it will free up your computer while printing so that you can continue to work. It sounds good. I like it when I am publishing something or batch plotting through the sheet set manager.

BUT (there’s always a but in there somewhere), when I need to print single sheets, I don’t like it so much. What often happens to me is that I have two to three drawing files open and I want to print them. They might be from different drawing sets or whatever. The point is that I can only print them from the DWG files, one at a time. The background processing printing won’t let me print the second file until the first one is finished. So what’s the big deal?

The problem is that when you print behind the scenes, it takes longer. It takes longer because the computer is processing the printing, and processing your work. So I tried it. I switched it off and WOW!! The old printing speed returned. I have kept it off and my printing is much faster.

I usually don’t encourage people to turn off new features, because I want all of us to give them a chance. But this one works better for me when it is off. Perhaps the speed is not an issue (and even for me it isn’t always an issue) for you, and that’s ok too.

To turn it off, open up the OPTIONS (type in OP at the command line). Go to the PLOT AND PUBLISH tab. Near the left center area there is the option to toggle on/off Background Plotting. You have the ability to turn off Plotting and/or Publishing. I left the publishing on but turned the plotting off. Set it to fit your needs.

Happy CADDING.