Print Organizer really slow at printing cross section sheets

Print organizer is very slow at printing cross section sheets (20+ seconds / sheet).

Originally thinking it was just because of a certain linestyle or settings I tried multiple combinations of options and linestyles (even turning off linestyles) and that did not solve the issue.

Any idea why this could be happening?

  • How were the cross sections drawn? Are they created by GeoPak which means that they're references? I've noticed a lot of times if I'm heavy on reference files print organizer will lag a bit.

    Terry Judy Jr.

    MS SS2 08.11.09.357

    GeoPAK SS2 08-11.07.536

    Cook Coggin Engineers, Inc. - Tupelo, MS

  • I tried your suggestions but my average print time is still about 24-25 seconds. The reason why I dont think its the title block is because we actually use the same block for PnP and XS sheets but with 1/2 the grid turned off (each line in the grid is on a seperate level) and in the case of using the block with PnP sheets the sheets print in an average of 3-5 seconds each. As far as linestyles are concerned the linestyles for the the grid are solid.

    This is seriously slowing down our workflow because a 35 page set of XS takes almost 15 mins to print.

    Thanks for any replies.

  • Our cross section sheets do take longer to plot.  In our case I have always considered this to be caused by the GRID we have on each cross section and the line style of the GRID.  We have a pretty dense grid with a custom linestyle of dots.  Each dot is actually a very short line.  So the combination of a dense grid and the dot linestyle causes the plot of cross section to take longer in our case.

    Mike Longstreet
    Vermont Agency of Transportation
    Civil Engineering Technical Support
    VTCAD Help

  • I suppose I forgot to mention: when Enable Optional Content is off, that means the levels are done away with for the PDF, so you'll have as much control over what levels are visible (and printable) as you would have if you print it on paper and then scan it. But if I'm right, that this is your problem, it'll be much faster for you to plot cross-sections.

  • If you are using a plot configuration file to print to a PDF, the reason for the slowness may be due to the number of levels within each cross-section clipping, since PDFs support the use of levels (displaying them or not individually). It could be that for cross-sections--and possibly other types of sheets too--you should have an alternate configuration in which you do this:

    Within the print window, go to File / Edit Printer Driver Configuration.

    On the Base Properties tab of the new window, open the Driver Properties.

    Enable Optional Content should be Off.

    Since I've only used Microstation in Mississippi with MDOT workspace, these are the instructions I'd use. I'm not certain if it's similar for you.