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The best printer for AutoCAD drawings is an essential tool for architecture, engineering, and design professionals. AutoCAD drawings are complex and detailed designs that require a high level of resolution and colour accuracy and often need to be rendered in large print formats.

Choosing the right plotter printer for the AEC industry requires careful consideration of how key features impact the precision, quality, and efficiency of your prints and project outcomes. To help you make an informed choice, we'll explore the specifications and advantages of leading models. Then we'll provide tips for adjusting your plotter printer settings for AutoCAD and enhancing your printer workflow.

Why Choosing the Right Printer Matters for AutoCAD Drawings

Computer-aided design (CAD) includes intricate line work, gradients, and precise colour matching that can be challenging for conventional printers to replicate. Choosing a high-resolution printer with accurate colour matching and precise line accuracy will enable you to produce large prints. Ultimately, the best printer for AutoCAD drawings is the one that will capture every intricate detail in your CAD drawing.

Importance of Precision in AutoCAD Prints AutoCAD prints are complex and highly detailed. They depend on colour gradients and clarity in linework to represent the intricacies of a design. High-resolution printers with accurate colour-matching capabilities are essential to capture the integrity of designs.

Key Features to Look For in Plotter Printers - Print Resolution: High resolution is crucial for capturing the detail in AutoCAD drawings.

• Speed: A faster printer increases productivity, allowing professionals to meet tight deadlines.
• Material Compatibility: Different projects may require printing on different materials.
• Colour Accuracy: Accurate colour is essential to represent gradients and shading to represent the design accurately.
• Connectivity and Compatibility: The ability for printers to seamlessly transfer information and integrate with your existing systems and software is crucial for efficiency, transparency, and collaboration.

Shop around for these characteristics to zero in on the best printer for AutoCAD drawings.

Top Plotter Printers for AutoCAD Drawings

The best printer for AutoCAD drawings will boast a variety of features to provide the clarity, accuracy, and efficiency necessary to produce vibrantly coloured and stunningly accurate prints to guide real-world applications. These are our top plotter printer picks for AutoCAD drawings.

HP DesignJet T250 A compact plotter that helps you save space in small offices, the HP DesignJet T250 offers impressive speed and clarity that make it ideal for the AEC industry.
Size: Available in 24"
Speed: Prints up to 30 sec/page, or 76 D prints per hour
Memory: 512 MB of internal memory
Resolution: HP Bright Office Inks plot up to 31% more line accuracy and up to 65% more gamut.
When used with the HP Smart App, you can print jobs from virtually anywhere.

HP DesignJet T650 The HP DesignJet T650 plotter, with its range of impressive features, can bring your biggest ideas to life from the office or the job site.

• Size: Available in 24" and 36"
• Speed: Up to 25 sec/page and 82 D prints per hour
• Memory: 1 GB of internal memory
• Resolution: Up to 31% more accuracy and 65% more colour gamut based on internal testing
• When used with the HP Smart App, you can print jobs from any location.

HP DesignJet T850 Designed to maximise agility, the HP DesignJet T850 offers various features that improve print quality and workflow efficiency.

• Size: Available in 36"
• Speed: Up to 25 sec/page and 90 D prints per hour
• Memory: 1GB
• Resolution: Up to 2400 x 1200 optimised DPI
• When used with the HP Smart App, you can print jobs from any location.

How to Adjust Plotter Printer Settings for AutoCAD

Working with complex files can make getting accurate and consistent prints challenging, even when working with the best printer for AutoCAD drawings. Printing from AutoCAD requires special considerations for setup to output a specific drawing.

Step-by-Step Guide to Configuring Your Printer Proper printer configuration is the key to printing accurate AutoCAD drawings. Follow this step-by-step guide to configure your printer.

• Open the Plot dialogue box and right-click on the Layout tab of the drawing that you want to print. Select Plot.
• Choose your printer plotter from the dropdown list.
• Select the paper size and ensure the matching paper is ready in your printer.
• Choose the plot area from the following menu. If you're unsure, you can click the preview button to see what your large format print will look like using different plot area options.
  • Display: Print what the screen shows, including blank areas.
  • Extents: Fill in the print area with all visible objects in the drawing.
  • Limits: Print everything that lies within the limits of the grid you've set.
  • View: Print a view you've saved with the large format drawing.
  • Window: Drag a window around any part of your large format drawing that you want to print.
• Determine plot scale by choosing fit to paper, selecting a predefined scale from the dropdown list, or entering a custom scale.
• Choose plot offset if you want to centre the plot on the plot area instead of starting from the origin.
• For additional settings and options, click the arrow icon in the bottom right corner to open the expanded Plot dialogue box.

Common Issues and How to Troubleshoot Them Issues may arise that result in prints that appear differently than you expected. Use these tips to troubleshoot common AutoCAD printing issues.

• Drawing items (like lines, notes, images, or drawing references) are missing: This issue can have several causes. Solutions include installing the latest update, ensuring page setup settings are correct, layering settings, and changing colours in layering settings as necessary.
• Preview doesn't show: Open the file, select the printer driver, and reset settings.
• The preview looks good but nothing happens at the printer: This can be caused by a printer driver issue or a stalled print job. Cancel non-printing print jobs from the printer queue, and then attempt to print. If the printer still doesn't react, then uninstall and reinstall the printer driver, making sure you're using an AutoCAD-compatible driver.

Enhancing Your AutoCAD Printing Workflow

Plotting and printing AutoCAD files requires several steps to ensure the end result stays true to the original design. But you can improve productivity with our tips for optimising print speed and improving print management.

Tips for Optimising Print Speed and Quality - Create an AutoCAD template file to eliminate scale, plotting, and annotation issues.

• Use keyboard shortcuts for commands.
• Learn to batch plot so you can plot a group of drawings at once without opening each drawing individually.
• Permanently delete any changes and unused layers to avoid unnecessary objects showing up in the final print.

Best Practices for Print Management - Invest in print management software that supports your OS and printer.

• Back up your CAD drawing to PDF before printing.
• Preview documents before printing to ensure there are no errors or unnecessary changes.

Making an Informed Decision for Your Printing Needs

Choosing the best printer for AutoCAD drawings is crucial for professionals in architecture, engineering, and design who rely on AutoCAD for creating technical drawings that lead to superior project outcomes and client satisfaction. HP is a long-standing leader in providing high-quality plotter printers to professionals in the AEC industry. Contact HP to talk about your plotter printer needs and learn more about how HP DesignJet can revolutionise your large format printing experience.