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borders suddenly getting cut off


idiggplants

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ok, so drawings ive printed for ages on the same printer, same everything, as far as i can tell, are suddenly getting cropped at the top and bottom. im not sure why or how. i thought it was maybe just something with the printer. if i go into plot, then properties behind the .pc3 and look at the printable areas... nothing has changed. i have the same 0.52 on the tops and bottoms. if i play with it a little i find that 0.50 will still print, and it will just barely get half of my border printed. so that seems to tell me that my sheets have increased size??!! which i KNOW didnt happen. nothing has changed. i havent updated drivers, i havent change printers. same pc3 file. i did update to civil3d sp3 recently. but why would that change anything?!

 

what is even crazier, is that the dwg to pdf .pc3 is even worse. its now cutting off like 1/4" at the top and the bottom. i went in and revised the printable area from 0.7 down to 0.3 and it is fine, but why the heck did i need to change anything??!! please help, im going insane! :(

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  • 4 weeks later...

Might help to post some files and screen shots.

 

Does the preview look correct?

 

Did you look into what they listed for the fixes in the service pack update?

 

Any recent Windows update?

 

I do not see a SP 3 for Civil 3D 2013.

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i did update to civil3d sp3 recently. but why would that change anything?!
That is probably exactly where it came from.

 

I had a similar thing happen once after an SP upgrade for 2008. It seems the plotter drivers from time to time, are updated within SP's, and are apparently written by monkeys eating rotten fruit, so I was hit with all my titleblock/borderline xrefs printing 1/4" too far to the right. Luckily the shop I was in at the time made wide use of named, and saved page set-ups/layouts so all I had to do to fix it was to adjust the plot offset in a handful of those, and all was rosy again.

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the preview looks fine. but the preview is affected by what i "tell" autocad the limitations are... im not sure what files to post. it does it on every single drawing. its like the printer now needs a larger top and bottom border on the 24x36" sheets in the 24" direction.

 

this has been happening for the past month. im sure there were many windows updates in that time.

 

currently before i plot i have 2 options, i have to go in and edit the title block to be slightly smaller, and then re-pick all of the plot "windows", or i have to change each plot to 1:1.01 scale.

 

i just dont get it. and that is what is frustrating.

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the preview looks fine. but the preview is affected by what i "tell" autocad the limitations are... im not sure what files to post. it does it on every single drawing. its like the printer now needs a larger top and bottom border on the 24x36" sheets in the 24" direction.

 

this has been happening for the past month. im sure there were many windows updates in that time.

 

currently before i plot i have 2 options, i have to go in and edit the title block to be slightly smaller, and then re-pick all of the plot "windows", or i have to change each plot to 1:1.01 scale.

 

i just dont get it. and that is what is frustrating.

Does it help to, or have you checked off 'Center The Plot'?
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That is probably exactly where it came from.

 

I had a similar thing happen once after an SP upgrade for 2008. It seems the plotter drivers from time to time, are updated within SP's, and are apparently written by monkeys eating rotten fruit, so I was hit with all my titleblock/borderline xrefs printing 1/4" too far to the right. Luckily the shop I was in at the time made wide use of named, and saved page set-ups/layouts so all I had to do to fix it was to adjust the plot offset in a handful of those, and all was rosy again.

 

ohh man. i have no idea how id go about doing that.

 

something else crazy....the width of the plottable area increased by like 1/4"!?!?!

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Since everyone's plotter and drivers are different, and installation specific, I am not sure if posting a file will help, but it won't hurt. When you post one, make sure it is one that has not yet been "fixed", or maybe one before, and one after.

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ohh man. i have no idea how id go about doing that.

 

something else crazy....the width of the plottable area increased by like 1/4"!?!?!

You have to do it in the template dwg on day one, otherwise it would be the same kind of retro fit nightmare you are going through.

 

Do you use any of the FULL BLEED paper sizes? I switched to the 36" x 24" Full Bleed Arch "D" paper and I got more printable area, which helped me avoid having to change my titleblock/border xref file when I had the problem back with 2008.

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Normally, if the preview is correct, it is the driver or on the printer/plotter end, yes, preview is pretty much what AutoCAD is saying it should be.

 

You might check your printer properties and see if there is a paper size difference, the PC3 might be showing Arch D and the properties ANSI D or something else.

 

Really don't need any particular file, just any that do this, plot settings, some pdfs of the output, screenshots of the plot preview to start. Files, may not help, but they certainly won't hurt.

 

Weird that the DWG to PDF is doing the same, though.

 

Windows will update drivers sometimes, if you have a Dell, HP or Lenovo computer, they will sometimes be setup to automatically get driver updates.

Edited by SLW210
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but im not even sure what that is going to accomplish. its nothing in the actual .dwg... the borders havent changed sizes... its in some sort of driver, or autocad itself, or the plotter, right?

 

it happens in every .dwg we have.

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Some people have different results with pdf and hard copy with this issue. How do yours differ, if at all?

 

both are suddenly cropping.

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ok, im coming back from the ledge.

 

i found an old .pc3 file from an old backup that is from almost a year ago. i have absolutely not changed anything on it, between then and when the problems started. but i backed up the existing one, and then replaced it with the archived one, and that seemed to fix the problem.

 

ill have to figure out how to post the files here for you guys to maybe see what happened. but for now, my blood pressure is falling.

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That would tell me that some update may have caused that, not sure how the .pc3 would change automatically.

 

Maybe some malware or virus?

 

How long ago did this start? Maybe a Windows restore point prior, then one update at a time to see what might have changed them.

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