Laser Jet printing

[tom degenhart]

I an evaluating moving to Qcad from Autocad and Draftsight as my design needs no long justify the yearly cost of these programs. I have tried to print on my Laserjet 1020 without success. The machine cycles but does not print anything. I have successfully printed on the Canon MX410. The Qcad program is the latest download, specs below. The computer is a Dell, 32 bit Intel Core i7-260 with 4.0 GB memory. OS is Windows 7 professional, service pack 1

Version:
3.24.2.0 (3.24.2)
Internet:
QCAD.org
Build Date:
Jan 10 2020
Revision:
f05abb0
Qt Version:
5.5.1
Architecture:
i386
Compiler:
MSVC++ 10.0 (2010)

Tom Degenhart
Degenhart Machine

collet.dxf

(56.44 KiB) Downloaded 462 times

[Husky]

Your example drawing looks and prints just fine - I can't see an obvious issue.

Please doublecheck your print settings regarding to the QCAD print manual:

https://qcad.org/en/tutorial-printing

Please keep us posted.

[tom degenhart]

Nothing I have been able to do results in anything but a blank sheet of paper.

Tom

[Husky]

Attached you will find a pdf print from your drawing. Please load it into your pdf reader and try to print it with the Laserjet 1020 on paper.

collet.pdf

(2.14 KiB) Downloaded 504 times

Is that working?

[tom degenhart]

Yes, I have printed from PDFs before, that is not a problem but it is an unnecessary step to save to a PDF file for printing plus the scale is all screwed up. I have printed directly to an inkjet printer, a Canon ix6500 but that is expensive and used infrequently.

The goal is to print directly from Qcad to the laser printer. If I can't do that then I will have to look else where.

Tom

[Husky]

The goal is to print directly from Qcad to the laser printer. If I can't do that then I will have to look else where.

My approach has been to achieve this goal, but it looks like there is no desire to isolate the issue. So far I'm 100% sure it is not a QCAD issue. I assume setting issues in QCAD or at the printer. Most likely the printer ...
Good luck!

[RandallG]

Per Husky's response to a different person on this forum with printing problems, did you verify that your drawing line widths are NOT
0.00 ? Both in the Application Preferences and Drawing Preferences settings?

That is what fixed the printing problem for the other user. Changing that from zero to a value that is NOT zero. This was covered in
the tutorial link that Husky sent to you as well but thought I'd point out that specific fix in the tutorial.

[tom degenhart]

Line width is .25 mm.

Let's go the opposite direction. Send me a simple drawing that prints correctly to a laser.

Tom

[RandallG]

This attached file, printed just fine from Qcad Version 3.24.3 using Qcad in both Windows 10 as well as from Ubuntu 19.10.
I have an HP Color Laserjet M451dw printer.

[tom degenhart]

Still nothing. Note what I have is windows 7 professional. Does the dxf file carry with it the settings needed to print or are these set by the user at the time of printing.

Tom

[RandallG]

Does all your other software print just fine? Either way, one more thing you might try is to see if there are updated printer drivers for that printer. The printer settings are only configured by the software. The software is dependent on the printer drivers and settings that they offer. Qcad itself does not contain any drivers for hardware per se. If you are able to print to a pdf successfully, then that would suggest that the software is doing it's job. The printer itself seems to be having issues understanding the output from the software and that could be something solved by updated printer drivers if they are available. In the past, I've even used drivers for a printer model (of the same manufacture) that was the next generation printer of the same model successfully. But only if you can't find updated drivers specific to your current printer model.

[tom degenhart]

Got a current copy of the printer driver, no change.

This is the only piece of software that won't work with the laser printer (and Librecad which I understand is a derivative of Qcad)

Tom

[andrew]

Could be an incompatibility of Qt (the toolkit QCAD is based on) and your particular printer driver.

If you want, feel free to try this alternative package, linked against a newer version of Qt:
https://qcad.org/archives/qcad/qcad-3.2 ... taller.msi

[tom degenhart]

That version and the border file still nothing.

I have found that nanocad will do what I want and prints fine including drawings created in qcad. I see no further purpose in pursuing this. Thank you for your time and efforts.

Tom