Printable Area Shifting

I am plotting to an HP5500 from AutoCAD 2004. The default margins for an Arch D landscape sheet are: top 1.38 bottom 0.28 left 0.27 and right 0.27. I would like to create asymmetrical margins on the left and right. I set the left margin to 2.5 inches. This allows me to put a titleblock in at 0,0 and leaves a binding margin on the left.

The plot previews fine, however when plotting, the page is shifted all the way back to the default left margin. The plotter is set to allow the software to determine the print settings. The plot area is set to layout. Inked area and auto rotate are not checked. I have searched the forums for this problem and have not found how to address this shift in printable area. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

There is a frequent confusion between printable area and "margins". AutoCAD
does not currently have a margins feature. The way to shift your plot to the
right is with plot offset.

Arch D landscape sheet are: top 1.38 bottom 0.28 left 0.27 and right 0.27. I
would like to create asymmetrical margins on the left and right. I set the
left margin to 2.5 inches. This allows me to put a titleblock in at 0,0 and
leaves a binding margin on the left.

way back to the default left margin. The plotter is set to allow the
software to determine the print settings. The plot area is set to layout.
Inked area and auto rotate are not checked. I have searched the forums for
this problem and have not found how to address this shift in printable area.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

Tim, thanks for the info.

Asymmetrical margins seem to work fine when sending plots to my 11x17 printer. So it would seem that AutoCAD does indeed have a margins feature that occasionally works. The feature does not seem to work with my HP plotters.

I found this post with someone with the same problem:

http://discussion.autodesk.com/thread.jspa?threadID=372317

Perhaps, I don't understand the intent of margins / printable area relationship. I can't find any clear reason in the discussion groups or help menus for the existence of the margins feature if it doesn't really affect the printable area.

Can anyone provide clarification?

 

My trick is that I go into my plotter PC3 file, and modify al the sheet sizes by setting all the margins to a value of 0.

It takes a while, but it is SO worth it.