If you're a professional working with CAD and CAD related information and needing hard copy, you'll appreciate the need for top quality printing capabilities. Print quality equates to extreme accuracy in the print, as well as your specifications and patiently accumulated graphics. These are working documents, and they have to be good, as well as look good. Semi-legible plans aren't an option. CAD printing has to be done as well as the plans themselves.
CAD can help, but so can your printer
Fortunately, CAD is an almost self-explanatory drawing mode. You know the whole story of every line on the plan, line sizes, areas of text, etc. It's also helpful by nature because of its strongly regulated lines and coordinates, which is a very good printer-friendly setup by nature. A basic print dialog box will do most of the work, but with technical drawing you can add some failsafes and quality controls before you print.
The Draft and Text modes are particularly useful, because they use a minimum of ink. If there are any actual print problems, you'll see them on this type of print. If there are head or nozzle issues, the print will have gaps in lines, or blurry looking elements. Use the Advanced and Maintenance settings to clear up these issues.
Ink quality issues and getting the right setup
The dpi ratio is often the key to good line quality. Good quality printer inks, particularly those used for photo printing, are the best. You may find that photo quality technical drawings are more precise on your printer, because of the high quality ink applications to media.
If you're finding lines are looking variable, you can use imaging software to control DPI levels. Use a systematic increase or decrease in DPI to get the right settings. You don't need to waste ink, either, just do basic print maintenance tests with the new settings. Solid lines on tests mean you're ready to print.
A3 prints- quality before printing
Anyone who's ever wrestled with an A3 technical print knows the story. They're big, they're complicated, and there always seems to be something. They're also ink gluttons, if you let them get away with it.
The way to deal with these ink-hogging, line-sabotaging pests is with simple trickery. An A3 can be reduced down to an A5 easily. Simply test and do your quality controls on the A5. (A4 may use up a bit of ink, but you can try that for high detail, too.) You still have the level of detail, you can see problems, and you have some ink left.
Double checks using software for quality control
Another good quality control option is element printing. That's easy with CAD, and it's quick. You can do elements of the design as test prints. In some technical drawing printing jobs you may need element prints anyway, so you can do both at the same time. It saves ink, and will find any printing issues instantly.
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