Printing to a ProjectWise InterPlot Server

The printing system lets you submit prints from both Print Organizer and the Print dialog to a ProjectWise InterPlot Server. There are several advantages when using this workflow.

You can access ProjectWise InterPlot drivers.
Centralized printer management. Administrators can set up local printers on a ProjectWise InterPlot Server and then create printer connections from each client.
Eliminates the need to install a separate printing client such as InterPlot Organizer.
Enables users to take advantage of ProjectWise Dynamic Plot Service for digital pen markups.

For more information, see:

ProjectWise InterPlot Server Printer Driver Configurations

To submit prints to a ProjectWise InterPlot Server, the printer driver configuration schema supports these properties: Default Send to InterPlot Server and Rendering Attributes File Name. Both are visible only for Windows printer driver configurations (i.e. printer.pltcfg and interplot.pltcfg), and undefined in the delivered printer.pltcfg.

A printer.pltcfg variant, interplot.pltcfg is also delivered. It is identical to printer.pltcfg except that it has the Default Send to InterPlot Server property set to True and weight maps configured for weight 1 = 1 dot, weight 2 = 2 dots, etc.

The Rendering Attributes File Name property lets you specify a rendering attributes file when printing to the Windows printer driver. Rendering attributes allow you to control certain plotter-specific settings that affect the appearance of the plot.

If a rendering attributes file is defined in the .pltcfg file, it is included as a tag in the files submitted to the server, without local validation. The rendering attribute file follows the same rules as the other .pltcfg companion files (e.g. prolog, prefix, and suffix files). It may reside in the same directory as the .pltcfg file, or in MS_PLTCFG_PATH.

Note: This property is only used when submitting prints to a ProjectWise InterPlot Server.

Setting the Default Print Destination to a ProjectWise InterPlot Server

You can set the default print destination to a ProjectWise InterPlot Server for both the single Print dialog and Print Organizer with:

The Default Send to InterPlot Server .pltcfg property. If this property is set to True, the default print destination is set to a ProjectWise InterPlot Server. If this property is set to False, the default destination is either Send to printer, Create plot file, or Create metafile according to the existing logic and appropriate .pltcfg properties. Send to InterPlot Server and Create metafile are not mutually exclusive in the .pltcfg file, but Default Send to InterPlot Server overrides Default Create metafile if both are set to True.
Key-in commands PRINTDESTINATION IPSERVER and PRINTORGANIZER PRINTTO IPSERVER.

Note: The print destination is secondary to the Windows printer, not vice versa. That is, if the current destination is Send to InterPlot Server and the Windows printer is switched to one that is not hosted by ProjectWise InterPlot Server, the destination is automatically changed to Send to printer.

Enable Dynamic Plots

You can send prints to ProjectWise Dynamic Plot Service if the following requirements are met:

The current printer is a connection to a server supporting ProjectWise Dynamic Plot Service.
The design file resides in ProjectWise.
The destination is set to Send to InterPlot Server.
The current printer is a PostScript printer.

The ProjectWise Dynamic Plot Service software works in conjunction with ProjectWise InterPlot Server to apply a background pattern (along with the design data) to the plots during printing. The background pattern allows a digital pen to track, record, and capture annotations when they are placed on each sheet. For DGN and DWG files, the pen marks are then retrieved and converted into vector elements, and then stored in a markup file back into ProjectWise.

If the above requirements are met, both the single Print dialog and the Print Organizer Print dialog will display the Enable Dynamic Plot check box.