3.24.3 Low Resolution Printing

If you are having problems with QCAD, post here. Please report bugs through our Bug Tracker instead.

Always attach your original DXF or DWG file and mentions your QCAD version and the platform you are on.

Moderator: andrew

Forum rules

Always indicate your operating system and QCAD version.

Attach drawing files and screenshots.

Post one question per topic.

Post Reply
PiperPilotJohn
Active Member
Posts: 33
Joined: Sun Jun 23, 2013 2:02 am

3.24.3 Low Resolution Printing

Post by PiperPilotJohn » Sat Mar 21, 2020 11:21 pm

I just updated to 3.24.3 (luckily I saved 3.24.2 since the problem doesn't appear there) and my print previews and actual printed output is very low resolution. I'm attaching two examples of the same drawing - one from 3.24.2 and one from 3.24.3.

Is there, perhaps, some new setting in 3.24.3 that needs to be adjusted to compensate for this issue?

I'm running QCAD on a iMac Retina 5K system using the latest MacOS - version 10.15.3.

Thanks.
Attachments
Sample-3-24-3.pdf
Low resolution print preview and output
(599.77 KiB) Downloaded 350 times
Sample-3-24-2.pdf
Normal resolution print preview and output
(601.41 KiB) Downloaded 367 times
John

User avatar
Husky
Moderator/Drawing Help/Testing
Posts: 4935
Joined: Wed May 11, 2011 9:25 am
Location: USA

Re: 3.24.3 Low Resolution Printing

Post by Husky » Sat Mar 21, 2020 11:52 pm

PiperPilotJohn wrote:
Sat Mar 21, 2020 11:21 pm
Is there, perhaps, some new setting in 3.24.3 that needs to be adjusted to compensate for this issue?
Not sure .... :shock: but maybe you should play a bit with this settings:

Menu / Edit / Application Preferences ...

Husky-2020.03.21-04.png
Husky-2020.03.21-04.png (50.82 KiB) Viewed 4807 times
Work smart, not hard: QCad Pro
Win10/64, QcadPro, QcadCam version: Current.
If a thread is considered as "solved" please change the title of the first post to "[solved] Title..."

PiperPilotJohn
Active Member
Posts: 33
Joined: Sun Jun 23, 2013 2:02 am

Re: 3.24.3 Low Resolution Printing

Post by PiperPilotJohn » Sun Mar 22, 2020 4:31 am

Husky,

I checked the settings you mentioned below - the only difference was that "Auto switch..." was not checked, so I checked it. That helped a bit. With that said, there is still an obvious problem between the two versions. For example:

1) If I switch to Print Preview mode with the full drawing displayed, the drawing appears as lower resolution.
2) If I then zoom in the resolution of preview mode gets even worse.
3) If I zoom in before switching to Print Preview mode, the resolution isn't as bad, but it's still not correct.

The program appears as though it's not using the line weights as set for each layer. This drawing does specify a line weight per layer so the defaults should never kick in.

Something has definitely changed between .2 and .3, at least on the Mac.

John
John

User avatar
andrew
Site Admin
Posts: 9036
Joined: Fri Mar 30, 2007 6:07 am

Re: 3.24.3 Low Resolution Printing

Post by andrew » Sun Mar 22, 2020 10:24 pm

The resolution of both PDF's is identical.

I think your question is about the difference in lineweight. I can see that the drawing likely uses hairlines. Unfortunately, these hairlines (0 width) cause a lot of problems for many users as on most printers they are not printed or printed extremely fine and in some PDF viewers they don't show up. QCAD 3.24.3 avoids using hairlines. To be sure if that's what causes the problem, please attach your DXF as always.

PiperPilotJohn
Active Member
Posts: 33
Joined: Sun Jun 23, 2013 2:02 am

Re: 3.24.3 Low Resolution Printing

Post by PiperPilotJohn » Sun Mar 22, 2020 11:19 pm

Hi Andrew,

Thanks for the quick reply, as always. Sorry that I forgot to attach the DWG.

Well, I'm not sure what you're seeing differently than what I'm seeing, but the resolution of the drawings, or at least the way in which QCAD is displaying the line weights, has changed between the two versions. It's true that many of the lines which you call "hairlines" are using the default line width, which is set to .25mm in Graphics View/Appearance. I certainly can change the layers set to "default" to a specified line width to see if that makes a difference. In the meantime, I'll leave it alone so that you can check the original drawing as is.

The "Text" layer is also set to the "default" line width.

I'll attach the drawing for you and we'll see what you come up with. It's easy enough to change each layer to a specified line width if that'll fix the problem.

Thanks.

John
Attachments
KPIHAUD01C.dwg
(103.39 KiB) Downloaded 352 times
John

User avatar
andrew
Site Admin
Posts: 9036
Joined: Fri Mar 30, 2007 6:07 am

Re: 3.24.3 Low Resolution Printing

Post by andrew » Sun Mar 22, 2020 11:28 pm

Thanks.

Yes, this seems indeed to be related to the default lineweight used, especially for layer "0". You can change that or change the default lineweight in the application preferences from 0.25mm to 0.00mm (see Husky's post above).

PiperPilotJohn
Active Member
Posts: 33
Joined: Sun Jun 23, 2013 2:02 am

Re: 3.24.3 Low Resolution Printing

Post by PiperPilotJohn » Mon Mar 23, 2020 12:10 am

Andrew,

That does, indeed, fix the problem. And I just noticed something in Edit / Application Preferences / Graphics View / Appearance:

3.24.2: Does not have a setting for Linetypes / Default Lineweight

3.24.3: This section of the dialog is now called "Linetypes and Lineweights" and has a setting for "Default line weight:"

And that must be the change that occurred between versions that caused my problem.

From now on I plan to set a line weight for each layer to prevent this from happening again.

As always, thanks Andrew!

John
John

Post Reply

Return to “QCAD Troubleshooting and Problems”