Hello Everyone, I'm sorry that I've taken so long to post this summary (I posted my original question on 2/17 - I've included it below), but the problem wasn't solved until a couple of days ago. Thanks to all who offered solutions; one suggestion was to purchase a copy of the SuperPrint driver for my plotter from www.zenographics.com. I purchased and loaded the driver, then attempted to print, but after a small amount of the file printed, an "illegal operation" message appeared and printing stopped. Seemed to be worse than the original HP driver. I went looking on the ZenoGraphics web site for a tech support phone number, and found that their support consisted of some FAQ's and other documents, or you can post a question to their "discussion group" which they say someone from their company will answer. In one of their documents they said something like "check and see if you are using an ECP printer port" and included a link to MS's knowledge base. Followed that link. MS says that if you are printing through an ECP port to a device that cannot handle the output speed of the port, it can cause the spooler to hang, or produce garbled output, among other problems. They offer instructions on how to reconfigure the port as a non-ECP port. Fortunately, I have a second, older, non ECP port on my machine. Hooked the plotter up to that port, reset the driver to use LPT2, and presto, problem solved. The plot completed and output was excellent. I have the feeling that switching to that non ECP port might have solved the problem without using the new SuperPrint driver, but I have not had time yet to test that. Connected to the ECP, sometimes I could print 3 or 4 plots before the problem would arise (with the stock driver). The SuperPrint driver solution has its pros and cons. Pros: much more control over output, such as half toning, adjustments for sharpness, lightness, contrast, color saturation, etc. Output looks better color wise, no question. Cons: it costs $595, and tech support is minimal. I saw questions posted to the tech support discussion group that had gone unanswered for 2 weeks!!! (Apparently someone finally got around to answering them yesterday). If anyone has similar problems with their DJ 650C, I suggest checking what type port you have, and try either using a non ECP port, or reconfigure the port to a non ECP type, before spending $595 for SuperPrint. Original Message: Hello everyone, I've been having a recurring, but intermittent, problem printing complex plots with my Designjet 650C. I know I don't have enough printer memory for the plot, so I use the "process in computer's memory" selection. The computer(P550) has 128MB of ram. I'm using MI 4.5. Output size of the plots is 36" x 44". No scaling is used. Nothing else is running but MapInfo. The problem is that frequently a (varying) amount of the plot will print, then solid black swaths print. Sometimes rebooting and printing again will allow the entire plot to print, sometimes not. Is this a memory problem (the computer needs more?) or something else? If anyone else has experienced this problem, how did you solve it? Thanks ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe from this list, send e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] and put "unsubscribe MAPINFO-L" in the message body, or contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
