ACS - Cplot1 - Large Format Printer

Introduction
Service
Pricing/Media
Printing
Queue
Hints/Solutions

Cplot1 Introduction

cplot1 is a large-format, Inkjet, 2400 x 1200 max dpi color printer which is available to the UCSD community on a fee-for-service (recharge) basis.

This Hewlett-Packard DesignJet 800ps is capable of printing images 42 inches wide and theoretically up to 150 feet long. Various output media are available including draft quality paper, vellum, and photo-grade papers.

Location:

ACS Operations Computer Room
Applied Physics & Mathematics,
Room 1426
858-534-4097

cplot1 is unlike any other printer that ACS offers. Even if you are already familiar with fee-for-service printing on ACS laser printers, please read the instructions carefully including the level of support offered, costs, media options, procedures for submitting jobs to the printer and hints for better output.

If you have any questions, please direct them to the ACS Consulting Office, acs-consult@ucsd.edu.

SERVICE expectATIONS when using cplot1(speed and technical support)

CPLOT1 printing is an auxiliary service of ACS. The CPLOT1 fees are minimal, but so too are the levels of technical support and staffing to process jobs. CPLOT1 fees recover the cost of materials only.

To keep cplot1 fees to a minimum, technical support is limited to the written instructions provided on this webpage. Likewise the speed of job turnaround is not guaranteed. Computer room Operators run cplot1 jobs when time is available. Occasionally other duties take Operators away from the computer room thus preventing quick turnaround on cplot1 jobs.

Due to the limited technical support and uncertainties of job turnaround time we do not recommend using the cplot1 printer if you have a tight deadline, particularly if this is the first time you will be using the printer. Better options include Imprints (on campus) or a commercial printing company or copy store (e.g. Kinko's) that have staff standing by to process jobs and assist you in troublshooting document set-up errors.

For UCSD students working in ACS computer labs, the computers are preloaded with the necessary printer driver and PPD files, and there are "login" utilities that assist students in making the network connections to the ACS print job spooling system. UCSD affiliates working from other on campus locations will need to load driver files, establish printing network connections and make proper page set-up settings. It is not uncommon for it to take a few days to become familiar with all the logistical details necessary to print large jobs, properly scaled and properly positioned on cplot1.

How do I determine costs and preview jobs?

Cplot1 has a special pricing structure that is based on the amount of paper and ink consumed. To assist in anticipating the cost of cplot1 jobs there are special "non-printing" queues to which you can submit jobs for materials use calculation and previewing. The job will be scanned and you will be sent an email detailing how much paper and ink will be consumed if you submit the job for actual printing. The printer requires a 1/2" margin around your print area so you need to allow for this before sending your job to the "non-printing" queue.

Email Note:the report is emailed to the account you use to submit the print job. For departmental users (see above), this is the recharge account you established to use cplot1, not your UCSD email address.

You will also receive a link which you can use to view a thumbnail preview of the expected printer output online. The special non-printing queues are called cplot1_np36 (for 36" wide jobs) and cplot1_np42 (for 42" wide jobs). You can submit jobs to these queues just as you would any other print queue.

Pricing for cplot1 is calculated by adding the total ink and paper usage.

Ink Cost

There is an ink usage charge for each of the four ink colors cyan, megenta, yellow, and black (CMYK). The cost for full-coverage is $0.75 per sq. ft. per color C/M/Y/K.

Secondary colors (such as green) use more than one ink color and cost more. When Gloss Photo paper is used the printer mixes black from C/M/Y inks instead of using its black ink cartridge. The accounting script adjusts ink charges accordingly.

Paper Cost

The charge for paper is by the linear foot depending on the chosen media. Media Options and prices

(Be aware that this pricing is subject to change without prior notice. The email from the non-printing preview queue will always contain an accurate price.)

Print Preview

The best way to determine the cost of your job is to submit it first to one of the preview queues (cplot1_np or cplot1_np42) and check the email we send you.

Media Options

There are several types of media available for cplot1 output:

Media type	Queue name	Paper/media cost per linear foot
36" wide (non-printing queue)	`cplot1_np cplot1_np36`	$0.00
42" wide (non-printing queue)	`cplot1_np42`	$0.00
Draft Inkjet paper (36" wide)	`cplot1 cplot1_dr36`	$0.50
Heavyweight Coated paper (42" wide)	`cplot1_co42`	$1.00
Heavyweight Coated paper (36" wide)	`cplot1_co36`	$1.00
High Gloss Photo paper (42" wide)	`cplot1_hg42`	$3.00
High Gloss Photo paper (36" wide)	`cplot1_hg36`	$3.00
Semi Gloss Photo paper(42" wide)	`cplot1_sg42`	$3.00
Semi Gloss Photo paper(36" wide)	`cplot1_sg36`	$3.00
Vellum/Tracing paper (36" wide)	`cplot1_ve36`	$1.00

If you're planning to send a job to one of the photo paper queues, we recommend that you first print the job on plain paper to verify that your output is correct. As with all of our color printers, we do not issue refunds except in the case of mechanical problems with the printer.

Protective mailing tubes for your output
When you pick up your job, you may request a cardboard mailer tube for your output. The cost is $4.00 each, which will be added to the cost of your job. You may also exchange a previously-purchased mailer tube when you pick up your output.

Cplot1 - PPD Supported Page Sizes

The PPD file for cplot1 supports many different document page sizes. See the list of supported page sizes.

What type of ACS accounts do I need?

Users with ACS instructional (student) accounts may access the printer as they would any other fee-for-service (laser) printer. Be sure to set up a real-money Laser Printing Account at the ACS Account Services Office, before you try to print to cplot1. You will need to request the "Premium" print option for your laser account in order to use cplot1.

Non-instructional (i.e., departmental) users will need to contact the ACS Business Office to establish an ACS fee-for-service ("recharge") account.

How do I submit cplot1 jobs?

The procedures for submitting jobs to cplot1 depend on your computer platform type (Windows, Macintosh, Unix) and also on whether you are working in an ACS-managed computer lab. In all cases you will need an appropriate ACS account as described above.

The manufacturer claims the DesignJet 800ps printer can print jobs up to 150 feet long! However, if you have an extra large print job, more than 10 or 15 feet, please phone ahead (858-534-4097) to ensure that there's enough paper on the spool.

The PPD file for cplot1 supports many different document page sizes. See the list of supported page sizes. To use a document size other than those listed, you'll have to specify a custom page size within your application. Consult your program's documentation for specific instructions.

After submitting your job call the ACS operations staff (858-534-4097) and alert them to your job in the queue. You can also make arrangements to pickup your job at AP&M room 1426 or have it delivered to you via campus mail.

Printing procedures are outlined below for the various platform types and environments.

From an ACS-Managed Windows XP Lab
To print to cplot1 from an ACS-managed Windows XP Lab follow these steps:

Login to your account
Click the Start button at the lower left of the screen.
Click: Printers and Faxes
Select the cplot1 printer icon for the print queue you wish to use (see Media Options under the Pricing tab).
From the "File" menu "Set as Default Printer".
Open your document and print.
Call 858-534-4097 to notify the operators of your job.

Note: When you switch from the Non-printing Preview Queue to the Real Output Queue, any changes you made to the first printer will not apply to the second. Remember what changes were necessary and reapply them to the Real Output Queue.

Note: These instructions assume that your printing account is connected to the account you use to login to the ACS workstation. If that's not the case, e.g. you want to charge the job to an sdcc12 recharge account, you'll want to use our Remote Printing Service, described in the following sections. Note that the special cplot1 "relay" print queue is already installed in ACS-managed labs.

Using our Remote Printing Service from a Windows PC Connected to the Internet

Note: the following instructions assume that you know enough about managing this PC that you can download and install a customized PostScript Printer Driver file. If this task is beyond your capabilities, you'll need a knowledgeable helper to complete it. ACS Desktop Support can provide this kind of help for a fee.

Our Remote Printing Service, described here involves

Downloading and running the ACS Remote Print Installer to install an HP DesignJet 800PS driver and a special cplot1 "relay" print queue on your PC.

Once you've done this, to print to cplot1 you will:

Connect to the ACS Remote Printing Authorization web page where you will enter your cplot1 printing account's username and password.
Select the cplot1 print queue for your job from a pull-down menu's list of ACS printers (see Media Options under the Pricing tab)
Open your document and send your cplot1 job to the special cplot1 "relay" print queue you installed, while keeping your connection to the service active by keeping your browser window open, per the instructions you'll see displayed there.
Call 858-534-4097 to notify the operators of your job.

From an ACS-Managed Macintosh (OS X) Lab
To print to cplot1 from an ACS-managed Macintosh OS X lab, the basic steps are:

login to your account
open your document
pick "Page Setup" from the "File" menu;
choose cplot1 queue name from the "Format for" list;
select page size, orientation, etc. for your job
pick "Print..." from the "File" menu;
check that "Printer" shows the correct queue name;
select "Summary" and check other options' values;
print
Call 858-534-4097 to notify the operators of your job

Using our Remote Printing Service from Mac OS X Connected to the Internet

Note: the following instructions assume that you know enough about managing this Mac that you can download and install a customized PostScript Printer Driver file. If this task is beyond your capabilities, you'll need a knowledgeable helper to complete it. ACS Desktop Support can provide this kind of help for a fee.

Our Remote Printing Service, described here involves

Downloading and installing an HP DesignJet 800PS driver and a special cplot1 "relay" print queue on your Mac, per the instructions found here

Once you've done this, to print to cplot1 you will:

Connect to the ACS Remote Printing Authorization web page where you will enter your cplot1 printing account's username and password.
Select the cplot1 print queue for your job from a pull-down menu's list of ACS printers (see Media Options under the Pricing tab)
Open your document and send your cplot1 job to the special cplot1 "relay" print queue you installed, while keeping your connection to the service active by keeping your browser window open, per the instructions you'll see displayed there.
Call 858-534-4097 to notify the operators of your job.

Also see the online article Printing in Color from a Macintosh. It is written for the ACS computer lab environment, but it illustrates strategies that can be adapted for use on non-ACS Macintoshes.

From an ACS-Managed Unix Lab
If you have a Postscript file that is ready to be printed to cplot1, simply type 'lpr -Pcplot1 filename' at the command prompt of a workstation in an ACS-Managed Unix Lab. Note: If you send an ASCII text file to cplot1 it will not print.

Check your print jobs

Check Your Print Jobs using the Print Queue Management Utility.

Check or Remove Jobs from the Print Queue

When a document is printed to an ACS laser printer, it is not sent directly to the printer, but to an intermediate computer which holds on to the document ('print job') until the printer is ready to print it. Print jobs are sent from the queue to the printer in the order they are received.

Print Queue Management Utility shows list of your print jobs, along with information about how many other jobs will print before yours and also have the option that allows you to delete your jobs from the queue.

Hints on getting the best results

An important factor in successfully printing on the cplot1 printer is avoiding failures that occur if your job file is too large to transmit or store in print job spooling area(s). How large is too large? That varies depending on the route your job must follow from your ACS server to the print spool area on ieng9 which is the host that currently drives the printer. It also depends on traffic to the spool area(s) en route. Under the best circumstances (if you have direct access to ieng9) it probably is not wise to exceed 300 megabytes. Large jobs can run the spooling areas on servers out of space. In which case they will be removed (largest first) in order to maintain print service for ordinary jobs.

There are various ways you can reduce the size of your job files.

Use vector graphics ("draw") applications instead of raster graphics ("paint") applications. For example, Adobe Illustrator produces high quality signs and posters consisting of text and color areas (vector graphics). The size of Illustrator print jobs is small compared to raster graphics jobs of the same dimensions. Typical 30 x 42 inch posters have been created in Illustrator where the resulting PostScript file size was only 128 kilobytes. Vector graphics documents convert to PostScript very efficiently. The amount of text has little effect on the job size. Also the output resolution, in the case of vector graphics, is not critical. In Illustrator switching between 100 and 800 dpi does not change the job size appreciably. This is because the PostScript for vector graphics describes shapes of text and color areas in terms of geometric vectors, the printer builds the pixel by pixel bitmap of the finished image internally.

If you use raster graphics ("paint") applications such as Photoshop, the PostScript job file contains a pixel by pixel bitmap of the image. The file size can quickly get out of hand as the dimensions and resolution of the bitmap increase. Control the file size by reducing dimensions, resolution, and bit-depth. Reducing the dimensions and resolution reduces the number of pixels in your file. Reducing the color bit-depth reduces the amount of data per pixel.

The raster graphic's file size is not equal to PostScript job's file size. A 36"x 36", 300 dpi raster graphic of a square can be compressed by saving the file as a JPG or GIF to only a few hundred kilobytes. However, when the graphic is printed the PostScript job has a file size of over 250 megabytes. It is generally not a good idea to print jobs that includes raster graphics with a dpi greater then 300, even though the printer can print at a much higher resolution.

If you need to produce a large format piece such as poster that contains a mixture of text and color areas (vector graphics) and a few raster graphics images, consider using a vector graphics ("drawing") application for the major text and color areas of your poster. Leave space for raster graphics (e.g. Photoshop images) and attach them later.

Solutions to Common Problems

Symptom: Remote printing is not working.

OS X: Going to the ppd file with a browser shows a bunch of text, it does not download. You have to instead "Save As" in to /Library/Printers/PPDs.; Make sure set the document size and the paper size.; Make sure to set to LPD printing not IP printing.

Windows: Make sure to unpack the driver installer before running it.; Make sure to choose the "download as softfont" option.

Both: Make sure to use the preview queue.; Do not make the width other than 36 or 42.

Symptom: Document with gradient background fails to print. More specifically, a Microsoft Powerpoint job that has a gradient background is submitted to cplot1 and either the background does not print or you receive an E-mail report that says, "Note: Your PostScript job aborted or otherwise did not process properly. Please contact ACS User Services ( acs-consult@ucsd.edu , (858) 534 4060 ) for assistance."

Diagnosis: Large gradient areas, particularly Powerpoint backgrounds, are known to fail on the cplot1 plotter. Looking through the error logs on ieng9, you may see something like:

  GS Message: Error: /undefined in errordi^Tct
	GS Message: Operand stack:
	GS Message: 
	GS Message: Execution stack:
	GS Message:    %interp_exit   .runexec2   --nostringval--
			 --nostringval--   --nostringval--
	2   %stopped_push --nostringval--
			 --nostringval-- --nostringval--
	 false
	1   %stopped_push   1   3   %oparray_pop
	.runexec2 --nostringval--   --nostringval--
		   --nostringval--  
	2   %stopped_push --nostringval-- --nostringval--
				   --nostringval--
	GS Message: Dictionary stack:
	GS Message:    --dict:931/983(ro)(G)--   --dict:0/20(G)--
			 --dict:81/200(L)--
	GS Message: Current allocation mode is local
	GS Message: Current file position is 4048

Solution: Replace all gradient backgrounds in Powerpoint with single color backgrounds. (zz1kc)

(02/12/03)
Symptom: The cplot1_np preview of a PowerPoint document indicates a letter-sized image and does not show the whole document.

Diagnosis: The preview is showing an accurate indication of what would print. In this case, the job sent to cplot1_np contained a specification for a page size of "letter" rather than for a custom page size. The most likely reason for this is that it's not enough that you specify a page size in PowerPoint; in addition, you need to pick one of the page sizes known for that particular device (HP DesignJet 800PS).

Solution: Click on the "Properties" button in the window which appears when you select "Print..." from PowerPoint's File menu. (Be sure that the "Name:" shows "HP DesignJet 800PS", so you'll get the right list of properties. Look at "Paper Size:"; it probably says Letter now. Pick the size you want from the list or pick the PostScript custom Page Size item from that list.

Once you've done this, the thumbnail you get back should reflect the choice you made instead of the default "letter".

(09/24/03)
Symptom: The cplot1_np preview of a TEX document indicates a letter-sized image.

Diagnosis: Special directives are required to increase (or override) the default TEX output size which is letter-size.

Suggestions: Look for TEX (LaTEX, teTEX) documentation concerning increasing the output size, for example look for notes about "poster.cls". Use those instructions to generate your DVI file. Use the dvips utility that is part of TeTEX on ACS systems to convert your DVI file to PostScript. This dvips is configured to respond to the HSIZE and VSIZE values and set the height and width of the PostScript encoded file accordingly.

Alternatively, look for the "poster" program by Jos van Eijndhoven. This has not been tested locally, but it's described as a utility to resize an encapsulated (or single page) postscript image to print on larger media.

Yet another alternative, here's a suggestion from a UCSD student ...

For latex, I had a style file from
http://www.robots.ox.ac.uk/~awf/latex-posters/
provided by Andrew Fitzgibbon.
For dvi -> ps, I used

            dvips -P a0 -Ppdf -G0 filename.

You were also right about the ps/eps issue, the ps printed fine, but the eps did not, nor did printing through ghostview work. It appears plain command line printing [using lpr] is the best option.

If you successfully use one of these methods, the thumbnail you get back should reflect your chosen output size instead of the default "letter".

(02/12/03)
Symptom: Problem opening files, e.g. Microsoft PowerPoint says that file does not exist.

Diagnosis: Microsoft Office applications (Word, Powerpoint, Excel, Publisher, etc.) on the Macintosh have trouble opening files from a network folder. If you see your file, but Microsoft PowerPoint insists that the file does not exist, then you must copy the file to your desktop and open it from there.

Solution: Make a local copy of your file by dragging it from your network folder to the desktop. Open the copy on your desktop for editing (Microsoft applications should not complain now). If you've made modifications, be sure to save the file and copy it back to your network folder.

(09/30/03)
Symptom: Windows Powerpoint landscape poster using custom page size prints in portrait mode instead of landscape mode.

Diagnosis: Custom Page Setup screen's "width" is the paper's width, not the width of the (landscape) poster.

Solution: The width and height of the custom page size should be thought of with you standing behind the printer watching the paper come out: The width is the width of the actual paper, e.g. up to 42 inches, and the height is how much paper will unroll, e.g. 56 inches. Then, setting it to print Landscape mode will rotate the document so that it prints sideways, matching the document's height to the width of the paper, and vise versa.

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