UW-Madison Department of Geoscience - Poster Troubleshooting

Troubleshooting Poster Printing Problems
Printing posters is not an exact science, however there are several steps you can take that will help you produce a successful one without spending too much time in the process.

First a little background.

The plotter model is HP1055CM. It understands two different page description languages. Postscript (PS) and HP RTL.

Both page description languages are available from the Window platforms. This is selectable by choosing between the two different printer definitions:
"HP DesignJet 1055CM GL2 RTL" and "HP1055CM PS" hosted from the computer "geo-nt".

Some posters print better by using the different driver.

Unfortunately, the Macintosh only understands the Postscript page description language.

The RTL driver produces a more compact output to the printer but is more difficult to use because it is more difficult to select the larger page sizes. The RTL driver works better on posters with many imbedded photographs or posters without a lot of lines, text or regular geometric shapes. Posters with lots of lines, text, regular geometric shapes will probably work better using the Postscript driver.
Again, with the Macintosh you don't have a choice.

If you have trouble using one driver and you've tried the other steps listed below then try the other driver.

Scanning Photos

Keep the size of scanned photos down to 150-200 dpi (dots per inch) at the final magnification of the print. The plotter only has a resolutions of 600 dots per inch for a single color, and trades off resolution for colors. Anything scanned higher causes the plotter to chug away (rather slowly trying to decide what to throw away. If you need to use your scans for different purposes then you can save different resolutions at scan time, or use Photoshop to resample the image. You can also use photoshop to save pictures with reduced color space.
You can also use Photoshop to save pictures with a reduced color space under the "Image -> Mode menu. Scale back on the number of colors (color depth) 8 bit's per channel (24 bit color). In some cases you may also be able to save it with 256 colors (8 bit total) saving a lot of space.

Standard Page Sizes
In many cases, trying to save a few inches of paper by using a "custom page" size does not work. And you end up wasting more paper than you would save because it will require printing twice. Try a standard (selectable) page size such as 36"x96", 36"x84", 36"x72", or 36x60" that is the next larger size if your poster is not one exactly one of these sizes. In most programs, you won't be able to create larger drawing areas until you select a printer that is capable of creating larger page sizes.

Plotter margins
The poster printer is 36" wide and there is a half inch unprintable margin on each side. Keep your poster completely in the printable area. During editing, invisible artifacts can appear that are beyond the printable area. To find these artifacts, select the entire poster by hitting Ctrl-A (PC) or Apple-A (Mac).

Object Grouping
Grouping can cause problems. Sometimes the grouping heirarchy becomes too complicated and the print driver is unable to correctly handle it. Try placing everything into one large group by selecting the entire poster and ungrouping as many times as possible. Once ungroup is unavailable, group everything once. Do this on a "final print copy" of your poster incase you need to make any edits. Sometimes grouping objects with contents outside the plotter physical margins or outside a clipping window will result in the entire group not printing.

PDF File output
If your computer has Adobe Acrobat installed you can either save or print your poster in a PDF format, then use Acrobat or Acrobat Reader to print the resulting PDF file. Make sure the page size use to create the PDF file is the correct size of the poster you are trying to create.

Different File Format
You can try saving your poster in different formats. If you can't then the poster file might be corrupt in some way. In some cases, simply copying the file to a new one will fix it. Other cases you might need to make a copy, then start deleting objects until you can save the file in an alternate format. The last object you deleted was probably the one causing problems.

Illustrator Specific Problems
Illustrator does not automatically center the print area over the poster. You can align the print area by using the page tool. Follow these instructions to use the page tool.

Left-click on the hand tool in the floating tool window and hold down the mouse button until another selection appears.
The other selection is the page tool. Move the mouse over it and release the button.
Now left-click the mouse button again over your poster and hold the button down.
Once you place the print area box where you want it release the mouse button.

Any portion of your poster that is outside the dotted page outline will not be printed. This is indicative that the document size and the paper size are not the same. Use Document Setup and the Print menu before proceeding to print the poster

Color Backgrounds Avoid the use of large areas of solid color such as colored backgrounds because they use a lot of ink. If you want to use backgrounds, use lighter colors if possible. Medium-to-dark colors tend to saturate the paper with ink. The result is a somewhat unattractive wrinkled area when it dries.