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arrco · Guest

ADT2004
HP800 DesignJet Plotter
1 Station running XP Pro
1 Station running Win2000Pro

Issue: I have placed the .pc3 file and .pmp file for the plotter in a common folder on our server. I've updated the plot file search file to find that folder. So far so good.

The XP Pro terminal works fine. The Win2000Pro terminal recently had its HardDisk wiped and consequently had to re-install AutoCAD. I set up the plotters on the terminal after the re-install exactly as they are set up on the other machine:

Driver is local to each computer>plotter is setup through a TCP/IP port which points to the plotters IP address on the server.

Everything appears to be working as expected on the XP Pro station. When I try to plot from the other station, I select the plotter from the plot dialog, I get "device selected in .pc3 file not found, please select from list" and the specified file is the first one on the list! So I select it and all SEEMS to be ok. The plots come out, but now if I go back to the XP station and try to plot, the .pc3 file has changed and I end up getting the same error I was getting on the other machine "device selected...blah, blah".

I understand that since the files are being shared that any change made by one machine will affect the file for the other machine; I guess my question is, what could be changing it? Is there a way that you can take a plotter setup from one machine and transfer it to another to ensure the exact same config? There are only minor differences like paper sizes and such, but still need everything to run without error or differences between stations.

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated as I think I've exhausted what little I knew about plot configs.

TIA

Dean Saadallah · Guest

PC3 files look for very specific driver versions, exact locations, exact
everything from the setup they were created in. Once you make such a system
change, it would appear not all is 100% identical, hence the message.

What changed? You probably did not recreate the old HD image, but installed
all new.
Create new PC3 files out of the question? You will then have two sets.

--
Dean Saadallah
Add-on products for LT
http://www.pendean.com/lt
--

arrco · Guest

The drivers are the same, as for the locations - that's almost sure to be different because of the different OS's.

You are correct, the HD image was not re-created, it was wiped and re-installed as if new.

Creating new PC3 files isn't out of the question, however it makes it easier when settings need to change. For example, I've had a hell of a time getting my setting changes to stick; for some reason, when a new PC3 file is created, the first round of setting tweaks will stick (presumable because the PMP file is first created then), but when I go back in and try to change something else, the PMP never seems to be updated and/or the settings don't get saved back. Very frustrating - I've posted that issue several times and never got a solution.

In theory, if the plotters are set up on both terminals with the same settings, same drivers in the same locations, etc. is it even possible to share PC3's over a network? I would think that it is, cause the problem I'm running into is more with the printer config on the system and not with AutoCAD or it's PC3. If I can get the plotter settings, etc. exact, it would seem that my problem would go away.

Is there a way to copy files (similar to ACAD's pc3 but for the OS's printer set up/config) from one machine to another to ensure that the two setup's will be identical?

arrco · Guest

Anyone?

Martin Shoemaker · Guest

My guess is that there's something different about the plotter names
and/or set up in Windows. It could be as simple as an extra space
somewhere in the name, different capitalization, etc. I'd make an exact
list of printers in XP (highlight the names so you can see spaces),
remove all the plotters on the 2K computer, then re-enter them.

Martin

arrco wrote:

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