Understanding the printing process...

Wiebe van der Worp

I did not find satisfying documentation, information about the printing process so far. In an attempt to help my neighbours and learn myself, I wrote, am writing, a series about BricsCAD and Linux. The part about printing can be found here and concerns also basic stuff about CUPS and PDF's. Probably also interesting for macOS users.

However, I ran into trouble, quoting:

At this point something is odd. If I do ctrl-p > Preview, I get a proper PDF, if I do ctrl-p > , I get an A0 proposition and and custom size "_label" is not in the list any more. These problems do not occur when doing a -plot command. So -plot is a workaround at the same time.

Input is highly appreciated. SR on the way.

Anthony Apostolaros

If the built-in "Print as PDF" virtual printer is selected as the printer for a tab, and you request a print preview of that tab, it creates the PDF file and shows it to you. Then you can save the file to the folder where you want it, or just close it. It automatically saves a copy of the PDF file in AppData\Local\Temp\Bricscad, but doesn't tell you it's doing that.

If the built-in "Print as PDF" virtual printer is selected as the printer for a tab, and you request a print without a preview, it prompts you for a location to save the PDF file, but doesn't show you the file and doesn't automatically save a copy in AppData\Local\Temp\Bricscad.

A0 is the default sheet size for the "Print as PDF" virtual printer.

cadmonkey

So I sent that link through to our IT Technician to have a look, he said that it looks like the way to go now is to print it to PDF from BricsCAD and then to print that PDF.

It looks like printers can't be detected by BricsCAD at default?

Something interesting though, we also work on Windows 10 and we have our own plot styles that we created. I copied the plot styles from Windows system and pasted to Linux, then BricsCAD picked up on the plot styles and I could use them. I then copied the printer files (.pc3 files) also from Windows, but as soon as I want paste it to the Linux printer directory, it just doesn't want to accept it.

I'm just going to stick to printing to PDF and then printing that PDF, less hastle.

Wiebe van der Worp

@ Anthony, you write "If the built-in "Print as PDF" virtual printer is selected as the printer for a tab". That suggests you can choose different printers in the dialogue. In my case, "Print as PDF" is the only option, greyed out, while I have another PDF.pc3 file in the plotter path. Can you confirm that?

@ all, And after ctrl-p, custom properties defaults to A0, neglecting the custom size I made, that size is not in the list.

So: ctrl-p > OK does not work for custom sizes here, ctrl-p > Preview works, just as -plot ... works.

However, after some experimenting, custom size is a 65 * 35mm label and that might be a clue: Too small. For example custom size 400 * 500mm works fine. One step beyond...

Edit: custom sizes defined in the pc3 file are handled properly, custom sizes in panel cpagesetup are ignored during ctrl-p > OK and not ignored when doing ctrl-p > Preview and -plot ....

Anthony Apostolaros

In my Page Setup, the drop-down list of printers includes all the real and virtual printers I have installed in Windows, plus the Bricscad built-in virtual printer "Print as PDF." None of them is greyed out

Wiebe van der Worp

Peculiar at least.
Here: about: 19.2.15 (x64) BricsCAD, OS: (X)ubuntu 19.04
How "about" you?

Wiebe van der Worp

The service request resulted in confirmation that a greyed out "Print as PDF.pc3" is not a bug, it is a feature. Used to Windows it is probably something you don't expect but from a Linux point of view it is a logical choice. I've updated the page about Linux printing.

The answer also resulted in developers attention concerning evaporated custom sizes, also as discussed in the link.

Anthony Apostolaros

Evaporated custom sizes?
Custom sizes that have been changed from liquid to gaseous state?
Or custom sizes from which some of the water has been removed by evaporation, as with evaporated milk?

Wiebe van der Worp

Indeed evaporated as in "up in smoke" ;-)

By the way, some additional notes are added for someone who likes to code a direct print command in Linux.