Send PDF directly to plotter

Re: Send PDF directly to plotter

Lorys — Sun, 10 Nov 2013 08:51:27 GMT

I just remembered how we used to do this in win95

Get you IT to allow a copy of the printer to be in your windows explorer send box

then when you open your output box you can right mouse send to> and choose the plotter...

Re: Send PDF directly to plotter

Lorys — Sun, 10 Nov 2013 08:48:11 GMT

you could make an f key script that plots to pdf and your configs can set it to go to out put folder

then it would need to execute the exit to dos command to then run a batch file which would copy the contents of the out folder to the plotter and then delete contents of the out folder..

or create a short cut on your desktop to execute the said batch file to copy/ send everything in the out folder ie pdfs and then delete the contents...

Re: Send PDF directly to plotter

Andrew Edge — Tue, 05 Nov 2013 00:42:11 GMT

Regarding "print to file & printer simultaneously", this is typically accomplished by using a post-print program. You can find this in the printer driver configuration editor, under the Programs tab. This section allows you to define a collection of operating system commands that execute either before or after print processing.

For your workflow, you could set up a variant of pdf.pltcfg that wrote a PDF file to somewhere on your hard drive (either automatically or via the interactive file picker). In the .pltcfg, you could define a post-print program that does something like "copy $(MS_PLTOUT) \\server\printer". The result would be both a PDF file on disk and a printout. Note that post-print programs are only executed when print processing is successful.

However, you should be aware that the plot file interpreters built into the plotter firmware are not all created equal. If you're getting good results using printer.pltcfg to print to the plotter via the vendor's preferred Windows printer driver, you may not receive the same level of quality when sending a PDF to the plotter directly. In the same way that 3rd-party PDF viewers struggle with advanced concepts such as transparency, plotter firmware may not honor everything that can be defined inside a PDF file, or honor it in the same way that Acrobat does.

MicroStation does not have the ability to create a plot file on disk using one printer driver, as well as drive a plotter using a different printer driver, all at the same time. This could probably be accomplished in sequence using keyins, though.

Re: Send PDF directly to plotter

Jeff McLeod — Mon, 04 Nov 2013 22:24:40 GMT

When printing from the PDF print dialog, are you using the "Actual Size" option, rather than "Fit"? Make sure you use Actual Size to get proper scaling.

No clue on the other stuff, sorry.

Re: Send PDF directly to plotter

mwlong — Mon, 04 Nov 2013 19:12:04 GMT

David,

Thanks for the reply. I will check with my IT department and see what they can do.

Re: Send PDF directly to plotter

David Allen — Mon, 04 Nov 2013 18:50:37 GMT

We are running MicroStation V8i (SS2) on Windows 7 x64.

We don't seem to have any scaling issues when creating PDFs from MicroStation, then opening/plotting with Adobe Reader.

We (I) maintain 4 drivers for each client (for each office): Full and half-size "direct print" and full and half-size PDF.

I am intrigued by your suggestion - that after creating the PDF, that it also be automatically plotted to a specific device.

I know there is a setting in the PDF driver to automatically open the PDF after creation... but that only gets you half-way there.

I am wondering if you set the output location of the PDF to a directory on the file server that automatically plots any PDF that shows up in the folder - to a specific plotter? You could set up different folders for each printer/plotter in your office?

This is sort of how the old eQuorum "DOS" queues used to work.

Just a thought.

May be worth talking to your IT folks if they could set up such a directory?

David Allen

Transportation CADD Manager

Pennoni Associates Inc.

Re: Send PDF directly to plotter

mwlong — Mon, 04 Nov 2013 15:51:37 GMT

Does anyone have an opinion on this matter?????????