I had a previous question where I found out a good way to assign an action to a .plt file to send it to a plotter.
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But my question now is to understand more about what a .plt file really is, and how similar the plotters have to be for it to work. To me, the main scenario where you might be tempted to want to plot to a file would be where the originating site has the data in a CAD system that the recieving site doesn't have. You want to send them an electronic file from which they can print the drawing, even though they don't have the software (in this case, AutoCAD 2004). I think my problem is arising because the sending site has a different plotter than the one at the receiving site. So when the (postscript?) file is copied to the printer at site 2, it has codes which may not be valid for the printer at site 2 so nothing happens.
If this is the problem, what might a solution be, to have the sending site define a "fake" printer matching the one at the receiving site? And to use that in the plot setup? Or is the "plot to file" independent of the hardware used?
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Plot to file is not device independent, it plots the files in the same format as if it was plotting to the printer, but just sends the data to a file instead of directly through the wire to the printer.
So if you install the same driver setup at site 1 as at site 2, the file will be compatible with the printer.
Once at site 2, in a DOS window, do someting like (if plotter in on LPT1) :
COPY MYFILE.PRN >LPT1
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by: mark876543Posted on 2004-10-04 at 11:38:43ID: 12219911
I worked around it by printing to Distiller and making a pdf file. It worked ok, but the goal of this question is to explore the .plt file method.