Printing to PDF and Plotting

Question

I have two drawings, both with an OS map attached. Both drawing have the same colour table attached to them , the same print attributes etc. 
 Drawing "a" has a colour 126 (grey) associated to the OS, drawing "b" has a colour 144 (darker grey) associated to the OS. 
 In the PDF both drawings look great but when I plot from PDF to printer..drawing "b" OS comes out lighter than drawing "a" OS.. 
 Any ideas?? Been bothering me a while 
 EDIT - This is using Microstation

Lorys · Answer

no overrides? 
 could be a video card driver thing .. 
 Let me see if this is what your saying.. 
 while viewing the pdf not the print preview, the pdf looks as desired, but when you send the pdf to a printer it comes out different.. 
 Some colour laser printers have several settings, ie default , images, enhanced and CAD.. you printer may be set on CAD or enhanced.. this will produce prints the match much closer to the cad view colours etc but if not the same settings for everybody will produce variations depending on who printed it.. use to happen all the time when I worked at another company using Minolta printers... especially different shades of green were vary noticeable... 
 in order to some testing I suggest you make a new drawing using same seed colour table etc. 
 run this old macro.. sorry don't have a vba one handy.. you have to unzip it put it where all your macros live and keyin macro drwtable it will then produce colour swatches with their rgb values below the little rectangles 
 I suggest you create pdf and try printing the resultant pdf to different printers and from different users to those printers and compare results on the papers... this will not work in connect edition .. bas has been removed form CE only vba available... must be a vba version on the forum somewhere..........aha! 
 
 1207.drwctabl.zip 
 ok found the vba one on askinga 
 PlaceColorTable.zip

Lorys · Answer

ok daniel 
 daniel niro said: Then I updated the printer driver but Canon Printer Error 5200 
 first off roll back your printer driver to the previous one , download what I uploaded and make a swatch print file drg just like the ones you get from the paint store but for microstation colour table testing.. now pdf the swatch with you pdf driver and print the pdf to your printer you now have a means of comparison. and can look at the windows setting for the printer to see if there are any special setting like advanced > CAD if your the only one who has this set then your prints will print differently to other users.... 
 FYI I have found the a big difference with roll plot inkjet printers and laser printers colours.. also 
 From Time to time the laser printers get out of alignment and this upsets the colours mix so they just don't look right( this can happen to inkjets too) ... time to get the manual out or call the tech to recalibrate the laser.. anoter good reason to have this swatch printed and saved to pdf and a reference paper copy( ies) to match with, also lets see how your printer is changing over time... 
 Also helps when trying to choose a colour for large filled areas or out lines , it may look awesome colours between colours on screen but on paper they look to close so you can use this like the one from the paint store before you buy and try the colours... 
 As you can tell I like this workflow a lot and use it almost daily...well the paper copy...