Quick Tip – Slow Printing

If you are using AutoCAD 2008 or even AutoCAD 2009, you might have noticed the printing seems to move a little bit slower. Here is a quick tip on speeding up your printing.

AutoCAD 2008 introduced to us BACKGROUND PROCESSING for plotting. The theory behind it is that it will free up your computer while printing so that you can continue to work. It sounds good. I like it when I am publishing something or batch plotting through the sheet set manager.

BUT (there’s always a but in there somewhere), when I need to print single sheets, I don’t like it so much. What often happens to me is that I have two to three drawing files open and I want to print them. They might be from different drawing sets or whatever. The point is that I can only print them from the DWG files, one at a time. The background processing printing won’t let me print the second file until the first one is finished. So what’s the big deal?

The problem is that when you print behind the scenes, it takes longer. It takes longer because the computer is processing the printing, and processing your work. So I tried it. I switched it off and WOW!! The old printing speed returned. I have kept it off and my printing is much faster.

I usually don’t encourage people to turn off new features, because I want all of us to give them a chance. But this one works better for me when it is off. Perhaps the speed is not an issue (and even for me it isn’t always an issue) for you, and that’s ok too.

To turn it off, open up the OPTIONS (type in OP at the command line). Go to the PLOT AND PUBLISH tab. Near the left center area there is the option to toggle on/off Background Plotting. You have the ability to turn off Plotting and/or Publishing. I left the publishing on but turned the plotting off. Set it to fit your needs.

Happy CADDING.