Printing

Richard Webb · Post by **Richard Webb** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 4:14 pm

I'm not sure whether or not this is a bug or just the fact that I just started as a user. I started using the demo version and had no problem with the print on graph printouts. I just registered and downloaded the most recent version and discovered that the graphs are printed with text that is variously blacked out, new symbols added or the graph no longer fits the page.

Any suggestions. I unloaded the program and tried reloading a fresh copy to no avail. I also tried reducing text size and while that helped a little, there were still many problems.

Dick

Post by **DPlotAdmin** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 4:24 pm

The "new symbols added" bothers me a bit. That generally means that there's trash in your print queue and rebooting may be the only way to get it working correctly again.

In any case, select Options>Extents/Tick marks/Size and check to see that "Specify size" is checked and that the width and height values are reasonable.

If the above doesn't help, please save a plot that's giving you trouble as a DPlot file and send it to me, along with information about your printer and the version of Windows you're using.

Richard Webb · Post by **Richard Webb** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 4:45 pm

I tried rebooting, using WYSIWYG and changing from 6 by 6 to 8 x 8 to no avail. I'll send you the file. I am using XP and version 1.9.8.5 of DPlot.

Dick

Post by **DPlotAdmin** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 5:05 pm

Dick,
Thank you for the file. It printed nicely on my Epson C80. My best guess is that you were using a demo version older than 1.9.8.5. In that version I did make a change that is the likely culprit: 3D surfaces using shaded bands of color are now drawn to a bitmap and the bitmap is then sent to the printer driver. In all previous versions the graphic commands were sent directly to the printer driver. That made for nice-looking but exceptionally slow printouts that chewed up A LOT of disk space.

It's possible that the printer driver for your Epson 785EPX does not support scaling a bitmap image and that it lies about that lack of support to Windows. I learned after releasing 1.9.8.5 that this is the case with Adobe's virtual printer drivers, so it wouldn't surprise me if this is the problem with your Epson.

You can confirm whether this new DPlot "feature" is the problem by using contour lines rather than shaded areas. If contour lines works correctly then this is almost certainly the problem. I don't have a solution off the top of my head, but it would be nice to know if this is the problem before I start solving it

Richard Webb · Post by **Richard Webb** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 5:10 pm

Yep, the line contour printed very well. I think I will check with Epson about driver updates although my printer is only 2 years old.

Dick

Post by **DPlotAdmin** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 5:20 pm

Thanks for the reply. Please let me know if you have any luck with an updated driver.

In the meantime... this is not a good permanent solution, of course, but you can save the plot to a .bmp or other image format and then print it out with Paint or other image editor.

Post by **DPlotAdmin** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 6:35 pm

Uh-oh. It looks like I've been grinding my teeth and falsely accusing various printer drivers of fouling up when the one fouling up was me. I stumbled into one problem that, when fixed, prints shaded surface plots on Acrobat virtual printers correctly. I'm guessing that this will also fix the problem you're having with your Epson, though of course there's only one way to tell for sure. At your convenience please overwrite your copy of dplot.exe with this one: [Edit: Removed] and let me know how this works out.

Thanks for your patience.

Richard Webb · Post by **Richard Webb** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 11:03 pm

I'll give it a try tomorrow night and let you know. By the way, reloading the drivers had no effect.

Dick

Post by **DPlotAdmin** » Tue Apr 12, 2005 2:51 pm

I haven't heard back from you on the e-mail I sent, but for anyone else reading this thread who has had similar problems, this should be fixed in the latest beta:
http://www.dplot.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=202

Richard Webb · Post by **Richard Webb** » Tue Apr 12, 2005 5:19 pm

David,

Sorry about not getting back. I solved the problem by uninstalling and reinstalling the printer using the Epsom disk rather than using the driver that came with XP.

Program is great.

Dick

Post by **DPlotAdmin** » Tue Apr 12, 2005 5:21 pm

Thanks for the reply. You may still run into problems with version 1.9.9 and earlier if you don't "Specify size" before printing. This is taken care of in the beta version I mentioned.

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