Plotter issues

[darrellk-1]

I have a HP 750C+ plotter, running ACad 2004 with XP and have a drawing almost finished. I have set up 5 pages and successfully plotted them using my company .ctb settings. On the 6th page, the plotter prints very faintly on most of the items and dark on some others. I have looked and the plotter selection, .ctb, and property settings are all the same; I am stumped and not sure what to do. I have deleted the page and simply started an new layout but it is doing exactly the same thing while the previous 5 pages plot fine.

??? Help!

[ReMark]

When you say you checked property settings do you mean those settings within the Layer Properties Manager?

[darrellk-1]

I am mostly lost when it comes to ctb files and always have troubles setting up a new layout. Therefore, I reuse layouts many times once set up successfully. I created a new .ctb file and tried printing from that one only to find the same issue: the border (white>prints black) was very faint as were some of the lines in the viewports. After trying that, I came back to my original .ctb file and viola' it now prints darker boarders again. Some of the other colors don't seem to be as dark as normal, but it is better. Could something have corrupted the .ctb file and how would I fix it? Recreate it anew?

[ReMark]

A corrupted .ctb file? I haven't come across that one although I suppose it is possible. What have you got to lose? I'd try to recreate a new one just use a slight variation on the old .ctb file name so you don not overwrite the old one or mix them up. Then all that is left is to test it. Good idea.

[matt41129]

Ive had this problem before. The previous place i use to work I dealt with a HP 350C and it did the same thing. I took the print cartridges out and cleaned the heads b/c they get junked up and it does that. Not sure if its the same thing but the similar happened to me and it fixed my problem.

[ReMark]

matt brings up a good point. When was the last time the head cleaning utility was run on this printer?

[darrellk-1]

I have run the cleaning utility a while back, and will run it again to be safe. However, it prints the other sheets just fine and only goes to a "greyed out" border and layer 0 items on this one layout sheet. Weird Thanks for your interest on this; I created another ctb and it is printing okay now.

[ReMark]

darrellk-1: Thank you for the update. Glad to hear your problem, at least for the moment, has been taken care of. One of those odd out of the blue things perhaps.

[darrellk-1]

Yes, perhaps but have you noticed that you always get the "out of the blue" issues when a project deadline is approaching?

Thanks for the ideas and support everyone.