Got spooked about the blue by a bad print job

[GeneDavis]

OOB X15 comes with many already-built SPVs, and plenty of text styles, dimension defaults, and layer sets already built.  There is a lot of the use of blue colors for annotation in the OOB setup.

 

The OOB framing for ceilings, floors, and roofs come with the planview lines in colors.

 

So there is a lot of blue, in various shades (I think) in OOB planview objects and annotation.

 

I rarely see my plans on paper, shipping finished work off as PDF files, and the clients and suppliers print.  Wanting to see how a new plan I am completing now looks for real, I went online, and chose a guy up north of Detroit, ThePlanPrinter.com, to use for a single set of full sized check prints.

 

They arrived and are almost unreadable in many instances, pages 1 thru 16.  I though he was running out of ink, or was using ink that was tending to gray and not full black, and reacted by calling him and complaining.  I could tell in the conversation he wasn't going to pay for another print and ship cost, not from the same file, nor did I really want him to do that.

 

So I ended up blaming the blues.  And then over-reacted by going through the file and its setup, changing line color and text and all other anno to black.  I now think I did not have to do this, or did I?  No one's ever said before, hey, all your prints look pale and washed out and it's hard to read the detail.

 

Do you use the OOB blues?

 

 

[SHCanada2]

i use OOTB blue for the template lines and text.

 

It looks fine from my laser printer

 

[Chrisb222]

I don't use the OOB blues but I use a lot of blue, lighter than the OOB blues, and they come out exactly as expected. I did review the OOB blues and those would print fine on my plotter. One reason I really like making my own prints.

 

Something went wrong somewhere between your system and the print supplier's output. What do the PDFs look like? Post one and I'll print it on my plotter and post a pic of the output.

[GeneDavis]

Thanks @Chrisb222!

 

See how this page prints.  The page I have has the anno so light it almost creates eye strain to read, and the Simpson instructions I put on the lower R (an image from a screencap) came out like it's bleached.

test page roof framing.pdf

[Joe_Carrick]

Gene,

 

Is your print service using a printer that suppresses blue?  As you may recall, blue was originally intended to not print on some old style machines.

[rlackore]

46 minutes ago, GeneDavis said:

See how this page prints.

 

Gene, this PDF is grayscale. Did you intend to post a file with blue?

[GeneDavis]

Could it be that printing it with "color" not checked, results in a .pdf that gives the washed out look?  I always sent to .pdf before with color checked, and assumed that clients printed in b&w.  This time I did the .pdf owner review set color unchecked.  That is what you see.

 

Where is the "greyscale" option when printing to .pdf?  I don't see it in any of my .pdf options.  I have Chief .pdf and Microsoft .pdf options, plus two desktop letter-sized printers, each at locations four to six states distant.  My summer and fall digs has no printer, but I can motor down the mountain to the little local library and print to letter size.  Maybe I should be doing that on a test page, printing to 8.5 x 11, before shipping to an online print source.

[Joe_Carrick]

27 minutes ago, GeneDavis said:

Where is the "greyscale" option when printing to .pdf?

I think it's automatic when color is unchecked.  There may have been an option in previous versions of Chief but I don't see it in X15.

[Chrisb222]

2 hours ago, GeneDavis said:

Thanks @Chrisb222!

 

See how this page prints.  The page I have has the anno so light it almost creates eye strain to read, and the Simpson instructions I put on the lower R (an image from a screencap) came out like it's bleached.

test page roof framing.pdf 217.46 kB · 5 downloads

 

No color in this file.

[Chrisb222]

21 minutes ago, Joe_Carrick said:

I think it's automatic when color is unchecked.

 

This is correct, on the Mac.

[GeneDavis]

The file I sent is a single page excerpt from the full set I had printed at ThePlanPrinter.com, which came back deathly pale.

[Kbird1]

7 hours ago, Joe_Carrick said:

I think it's automatic when color is unchecked. 

 

Color Off is controlled in Preferences on the Appearance Tab > Display  ....... choices are either Greyscale or Black and White.

 

 

M.

[Joe_Carrick]

4 hours ago, Kbird1 said:

 

Color Off is controlled in Preferences on the Appearance Tab > Display  ....... choices are either Greyscale or Black and White.

 

 

M.

But IMNSHO that should be just for the Display, not for Printing.   

[Chrisb222]

So... are we talking about the "Color" toggle in the layout toolbar? Or the "Print to Color" checkbox in the print DBX? Or the "Color Off is" Preferences setting?? Because these all do different things, with differ outcomes, making it difficult to discuss the OP intelligently just using the word "color."

 

When saving a PDF from Chief's print command, "Print to Color" in the print DBX ignores the "Color" toggle on the layout toolbar, but it obeys the B&W/Grayscale setting in Preferences. So regardless of whether you are displaying in color or not, you can choose to print to PDF in color or B&W ... or Grayscale, depending on your prefs setting.

[GeneDavis]

In PREFERENCES my setting was to grayscale, which I believe is OOB X15, as I cannot remember ever changing it.  Same for all previous X Chief updates.  I toggle color on an off all the time and expect to see shades of gray for wall fills.  Fills go to white when the PREF button for b&w is checked.  I printed the .pdf in b&w.