Trimble Business Center

Every time I try to print I get this? It is like it zooms and centers it.

This is my TBC window. 

It doesn't matter what paper size scale printer it always zooms and centers it. Weird.

Shea,

I have had a lot of trouble with plotbox/scale and plotting in general with 5.10.  Currently I am falling back on 5.0 until I have time to look deeper.

I recreated this again today - I had reported this prior to release and it appears to have slipped through the net. I typically use the Sheet Plotting approach so I don't typically see this because I don't typically use the function. That is no excuse for it not working correctly of course but we have memory issues when the image created has CF Maps in it on some PCs so I typically always use the Sheet Layout approach which is just as fast and gives a better result every time.

I have reported t again today and will chase it down tomorrow

Alan

I am getting a similar issue with sheet set plotting.  I have been using a pdf print drive for ages but with 5.1 it is creating the correct size paper in pdf but it is plotting the sheet image as if it were 8.5 x 11.  I tried using TBC's built in PDF plot driver and it does plot size correctly but then all the lineweights are messed up from what I had in the other PDF plotter.  I am assuming its an issue with the third party driver I am using so I didn't mention it, but it is very odd that it just stopped working with 5.1.  

I had a report of this yesterday as well. User was plotting sheet sets in v5.1 using Bluebeam PDF writer as the selected printer and it was not scaling correctly. If he selected "print to PDF" in the Print Plan Sets command, it was working ok

Thanks Alan,

I own and operate a small construction Surveying business plus we make 3D Models for machine control.  I make a lot of down and dirty plans for the crews and clients---Responding to RFI's,  Interim grading concepts, interim quantities, documentation verifications, etc.  These come fast with short notice and are used as working hardcopies--usually in the field.  I do not like to submit computations, quantities, numbers, etc. without a quick picture to assist in understanding.

The plot box tool is perfect for fast/down and dirty field hardcopies.

As stated in other e-mails I to used the "print to PDF" in print plan sets but they are usually too big for standard e-mail and using my Adobe PDF Driver I get the same issues as Wayne.

I agree that there is an issue with the Plotbox approach however I cannot get the Sheet Output to fail using our PDF output but agree that if you use a third party Print to PDF Driver - what was working in 5.0 is now not scaling correctly in v5.1  - all my Lineweights etc are working and my Print using the Print to PDF function is working OK.

If you are having Lineweight or other Plot Issues - can you send me the project with everything set up so I can test this at my end and try to get this resolved. (alan_sharp@trimble.com)

I still have a question - are you guys downsizing the PDF output to like 300 or 200 DPI when you use the third party print drivers  - if you use our Print to PDF and then repeat using the Print Drivers and capture two equivalent files - I would like to receive those to take a look at what you are doing - if you are downsizing - that would explain why the files are "smaller" but I assume at lower resolution (but I assume still acceptable resolution.

I would like to know what you are using as settings for DPI output and the size differences you are seeing - if any of you have time to do that for me I would appreciate it. I would also need to know which print drivers you are using.

I just tried out Nova PDF Report Writer and that allows me to downsize to e.g. 150 DPI which on Letter Size Paper is OK and it makes the file about 2/3 the size of our output - I could likely have gone down to a Lower Resolution like 96 DPI and still got an acceptable output (is this why you are all doing this?)

Alan

Alan,

I do a lot of interim drone surveys for quick quantities.  +/- 46 acres with cut/fill map overlaid on ortho photo. Using plotbox and Adobe driver I get a quick/clean hardcopy field image to go with my quantity report.  Straight out it is +/- 11mb.  I can "save as" a png file and convert it back to PDF and cut file size in half without losing "hardcopy" resolution.

This is why I would like Plotbox back.

My issues with the built in PDF plotter sound like Bruce's.  With my "PDF Creator" driver from PDFArchitect I can plot a 3 page sheet set on 11x17 with aerial imagery and the file is about 5-6 MB, with the built in PDF driver it comes out to 80ish MB.    The other issue I mentioned with the lineweights in not so much broken, but just different, with the PDFCreator I can choose real world lineweights, i.e. a 0.5mm lineweight plots at 0.5mm.  With the built in PDF driver I can still get a 0.5mm line thickness but I have to change it to something like 1.0mm to get it.

We had this issue as well which forces us to use the sheet set method right now. I guess it's a good learning opportunity for my colleagues that's not familiar with the sheet set method and relied on plot box. 

Alan,

As Wayne says the built in PDF tool works great but they can be too large.  My main client is Waste Management and Republic Services.  The engineers/project managers I work with are forced to use corporate computers with strict IT.  If they cannot get a PDF through normal e-mail  (up to +/- 15mb) they don't want it.  IT will not allow cloud access for larger file.  A 3rd party PDF driver is critical for my business.

So what you are saying is you need to trim your size down? Sounds like a shrink /swell issue to me. Maybe your just "wasting" time...LOL!

Im having the same problem i have been using the snip tool until this gets fixed.

I have generated a few pdf plots with plan view N and E grid lines displayed and then callibrated the pdf to the distance between grid intersections and then measuring a known plan dimension I am coming up with on average from 3 different pdf plot files a scale error of +/- 3.28.

That is the Conversion from Feet to Metric or vice versa - that is likely the defect that is currently being addressed.

Thanks for the catch here - that is helpful 

Alan

Any updates on a possible resolution to this yet?

Starting to get a little frustrated with this plotbox issue.

I am about to test the fix that we hope to put out in the Patch shortly - apologies for the issue

Alan