Printing Grey Scale PDF's

Re: Printing Grey Scale PDF's

Roy Gallier — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 20:39:21 GMT

zride91:
Roy, we do use a pen table that has screening defined as a percentage on top of a RGB value.

Dave,

I believe the screening is your problem. We had some of the same issues. I solution was to tune our output form the PDFs to represent what we wanted to see. Then we copied pdf.pltcfg and modified it to send the output directley to our plotter. Here is a thread, How to print using HPGL2 plotdriver?, which explains my process.

HTH - Roy

Re: Printing Grey Scale PDF's

zride91 — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 19:08:36 GMT

Thank you all fro your replies!

Caddcop, I have always assumed and expected that PDF output should be identical to printer output. mm is what is being used in our .plt files to define lineweights, line styles are a combination of inches and mm. The lineweight and style defenitions come from our client.

Roy, we do use a pen table that has screening defined as a percentage on top of a RGB value.

Bear, thanks for your .plt, I will try it out and see if the results differ!

Re: Printing Grey Scale PDF's

Bear — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 05:24:25 GMT

I've attached the greyscale pdf driver I've edited for our build. Would be curious to see how it goes with you.

Re: Printing Grey Scale PDF's

Roy Gallier — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 05:55:35 GMT

Dave,

Are you postprocessing with a pentable, if so how are the grey scale pens mapped: pen number, % shade, etc (don't currently have access to MS - just going from memory)?

- Roy

Re: Printing Grey Scale PDF's

caddcop — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 03:00:30 GMT

When I print to PDF - I can get almost identical results as when I print directly to a device. We use mm as our units for style and weight records. With that, you can use the same records in PDF.plt as in printer.plt.

using dots - the default is prone to DPI related issues.

Re: Printing Grey Scale PDF's

zride91 — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 21:47:28 GMT

Yes, it had the same result as the third party driver did.

Re: Printing Grey Scale PDF's

Budlite — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 21:43:32 GMT

Have you tried one of the pdf "plt" files instead of using a 3rd party program to create the pdf ?

Re: Printing Grey Scale PDF's

zride91 — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 20:50:04 GMT

I realize this is an old thread, sorry for bringing it back up again. I am actually having the same problem John was having and am wondering if there was ever a resolution to this?

I can print a drawing w/ grey color right to a printer using 300 dpi, the color is defined in a pen table, this comes out the best.

Printing to PDF using the same printer.plt to a 3rd party PDF writer, using the same pen table, when the PDF is printer to the same printer, the grey lines come out lighter and more "dotted" looking. The same is when I use the pdf.plt file (which has the same resolution setting, line weight settings, and the same pen table.

The only way I have gotten a PDF to print out acceptable to the client is if I use the same printer.plt and use the Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro distiller to create the PDF.

All the above was done using V8 2004. I had also tried PDF out put out of XM, and was getting results a little better with the grey color, but not much.

I would think printing to paper and priting from a PDF would /should have the same output, but it seems there is something in the process adjusting the grey color somehow.

Any direction would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Re: Printing Grey Scale PDF's

Lorys — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 17:41:10 GMT

Sounds like a resolution thing.. check the sytem printer windows printer resolution settings is at least 600 dpi..

check inside the pd.plt what is the resolution set at here..?

If still a problem then its the line type settings in the printer driver does yor printer.plt print the same dgns in grey scale mode to the laser? if it printsd ok then compare the pen settings of the line types..

Lorys