Plotting A0 .PDFs

[Pablo Ferral]

Could anyone shed some light on the following issue...

We recive a lot of drawings in .PDF format at our office. We have real problems when it comes to plotting A0 sized .PDFs.

We have HP Design Jet 500 plotters. We are running AutoCAD 2005 on Windows XP.

When it comes to plotting .PDFs they really jamb up the plotters. They take soooo long to plot. A0 .PDFs tend to jamb up the machines completley. I understand that it is the size of the .PDF bitmaps that are crashing the tiny mind of the plotters, but I can't think what to do about it.

I am looking for a fairly quick work around, we can often recive 50 or 60 drawings at a time!

Cheers in advance to any one who can help!

Pablo F :lol:

[ReMark]

Do you have a HPGL/2 accessory card installed in the plotter? If so, how much memory is on the card?

Are you plotting through a network connection?

Have you checked to see if there is an updated driver for the plotter?

You might also want to consider posting to the HP website. I believe they have a forum for registered users. Post your question there and a tech will respond usually within 24 hours.

[ReMark]

If you have had your Designjet 500 for more than a year be aware there is a v6.11 driver, dated 1/14/05, for use with Windows XP. The file size is 1.9 MB and the file name is dj500wumen.exe. You'll have to download it from the HP website. Registration is required before you'll be permitted access to the downloads area.

Note: When you have unzipped the files take a look at Readme.txt as it has some information regarding speeding up plots that may or may not be pertinent to your situation.

By the way, when it comes time to load the driver, it's the dsgj800.inf file you'll be loading. It contains the proper drivers for the DJ500.

[Pablo Ferral]

Thanks very much for your quick response.

Yes we plot through a network.

After some inspection I have found my Hpgl/2 card. I don't know how big it is but I have 32MB memory overall, so I presume it is 16MB.

I have downloaded the software up dated you suggested. I also found the HP network printer wizard as well, which sounds as though it may help.

Unfortuantly I am stumped here, I will have to ask the IT guys to install the printer wizard...

In the meantime if you have any other tips or tricks I would be most gratefull!

Have a good weekend :)

[ReMark]

You're most welcomed.

If you want to install the drivers yourself it is rather straight-forward. Click on Start, then on Printers & Faxes. You can delete the reference to your "old" DJ500 and install a "new" DJ500 using the drivers you just downloaded. Just be sure you know where the unzipped files are stored. When it comes time, Windows will prompt you for the location of the drivers. Click on "have disk" and use your browse button to find the correct folder. Remember you need to specify the .inf file I mentioned above. Good luck; hope all goes well.

[Dave-CSMW]

We used have an old DJ600 and I had some of the same issues. I found the only sure way to get some larger files to print was to shrink them. I would export the images out of the PDF and then use Paintshop Pro to reduce the DPI and colors. Like you I had to do it often but PS Pro allows you to write scripts which sped up the process.

I know this isn't the answer you want but with very large files I found that you two choices, reduce the file size (DPI), or get more memory.

[fuccaro]

If the plotter can not process the job you can ask to be processed in computer. This way we solved a problem years ago on a HP655C. A warning message told us that the plotting time will increasse but in fact it reduced the time to about 25%.

[Pablo Ferral]

Some more good tips, Thank you. Iwill let you know how I get on...