SIOPlot Introduction

ACMS has installed a poster printer for use by the SIO community, located in the SIO library. ACMS poster printers are often refered to as 'cplot' - for "color plot", as opposed to "color" or "laser" - printers. The name of the Scripps printer is 'sioplot'.

This poster printer is unlike any other printer that ACMS offers. Even if you are already familiar with fee-for-service printing on ACMS laser printers, please read the instructions carefully including the level of support offered, costs, media options, procedures for submitting jobs to the printer and hints for better output.

If you have any questions, please direct them to the ACMS Consulting Office, acms-consult@ucsd.edu.

Service Expectations when using the ACMS poster printers (speed and technical support)

Poster printing is an auxiliary service of ACMS. The fees are minimal, but so too are the levels of technical support and staffing to process jobs. The fees charged recover only the cost of materials used for printing.

To keep these fees to a minimum, technical support is limited to the written instructions provided on this webpage.

Due to the limited technical support and uncertainties of job turnaround time we do not recommend using the poster printer if you have a tight deadline, particularly if this is the first time you will be using the printer. Better options include Imprints (on campus) or a commercial printing company or copy store (e.g. Kinko's) which has staff standing by to process jobs and assist you in troubleshooting document set-up errors.

How do I determine costs and preview jobs?

The poster printer has a special pricing structure based on the amount of paper and ink consumed. To assist you in anticipating the cost of poster jobs we provide special "non-printing" queues to which you can submit jobs for cost estimates and previewing. Your job will be scanned, but not printed; we will send you an e-mail estimate of how much your job will cost when you submit the job for actual printing. The sioplot printer requires a 1/2" margin around your print area so you need to allow for this in your job's page setup.
  • Email Note:we send this e-mail estimate to the account you use to submit the print job. For departmental users (see above), this is the recharge account you established to use poster printers, not your UCSD e-mail address.
The e-mail estimate we send will also include a link which you can use to view a thumbnail preview of your job's output online. The special non-printing queue for sioplot is called sioplot_np. You can submit jobs to this queue just as you would any other print queue.

Pricing for posters is calculated by adding the amounts for ink and paper usage.

Ink Cost

There is an ink usage charge for each of the four ink colors cyan, megenta, yellow, and black (CMYK). The cost for full-coverage is approximately $0.75 per sq. ft. per color C/M/Y/K.

Paper Cost

The charge for 36" wide, heavy coated paper provided for the SIO plotter is $1 per linear foot

(Be aware that this pricing is subject to change without prior notice. The e-mail from the non-printing preview queue will always contain an accurate price.)

Print Preview

The best way to determine the cost of your job is to submit it first to the preview queue sioplot_np and check the email we send you.

Media Options

What type of ACMS accounts do I need?

Users with ACMS instructional (student) accounts may access the printer as they would any other fee-for-service (laser) printer. Be sure to set up a real-money Laser Printing Account at the ACMS Account Services Office, before you try to print a poster. You will need to request the "Premium" print option for your laser account in order to use the poster printers.

Non-instructional (i.e., departmental recharge) users will need to contact the ACMS Business Office to establish an ACMS fee-for-service account. Your department may already have one; check with your MSO.

How do I submit sioplot poster printing jobs?

The procedures for submitting jobs to the sioplot poster printer depend on your computer platform type (Windows, Macintosh, Unix) and also on whether you are using an ACMS-managed computer. In all cases you will need an appropriate ACMS account - with Premium print enabled - as described above.

The PPD file for HP's Designjet 800 poster printer supports many different page sizes but the paper roll loaded for sioplot print jobs is always exactly 36 inches wide. Here is the list of supported page sizes. To select a page size different than these, you may specify a custom page size within your application. Consult your application's documentation for specific instructions.

Printing procedures are outlined below for the various platform types and environments.

From an ACMS-Managed Windows XP computer
To print to sioplot from an ACMS-managed Windows XP computer follow these steps:

  • Login to your account using your AD credentials
  • Click the Start button at the lower left of the screen.
  • Click: Printers and Faxes
  • Select the sioplot_np or sioplot printer icon.
  • From the "File" menu "Set as Default Printer".
  • Open your document and print.

Note: When you switch from the Non-printing Preview Queue to the Real Output Queue, any changes you made to the sioplot_np queue's default settings will not carry over to the sioplot queue. Remember to reapply those changes (paper size, font handling, etc).

Note: These instructions assume that your printing account is connected to the account you use to login to the ACMS workstation. If that's not the case, e.g. you want to charge the job to an departmental recharge account or index number, you should use our Remote Printing Service, described in the following sections. Note that the special ACS HP DesignJet 800PS "relay" print queue is already installed in ACMS-managed computers.

Using our Remote Printing Service from a Windows PC Connected to the Internet

Note: the following instructions assume that you know enough about managing this PC that you can download and install a customized PostScript Printer Driver file. If that's not true for you, you'll want to enlist the aid of a knowledgeable helper to complete it. ACMS Desktop Support can provide this kind of help for a fee.

Our Remote Printing Service, described here involves

  • Downloading and running the ACMS Remote Print Installer to install an HP DesignJet 800PS driver and a special DesignJet 800 "relay" print queue on your PC.
Once you've done this, to print a poster you will:
  • Connect to the ACMS Remote Printing Authorization web page where you will enter your ACMS printing account's username and password.
  • Select the print queue for your job from a pull-down menu's list of ACMS printers (always start with the sioplot_np queue)
  • Open your document and send your sioplot job to the special Designjet 800 "relay" print queue you installed, while keeping your connection to the service active by keeping your browser window open, per the instructions you'll see displayed there.

From an ACMS-Managed Macintosh (OS X) Computer
To print to sioplot_np or sioplot from an ACMS-managed Macintosh OS X lab, the basic steps are:

  • login to your account
  • open your document
  • pick "Page Setup" from the "File" menu;
    choose the appropriate sioplot queue name from the "Format for" list;
    select page size, orientation, etc. for your job
  • pick "Print..." from the "File" menu;
    check that "Printer" shows the correct queue name;
    select "Summary" and check other options' values;
    print

Using our Remote Printing Service from Mac OS X Connected to the Internet

Note: the following instructions assume that you know enough about managing this Mac that you can download and install a customized PostScript Printer Driver file. If that's not true for you, you'll want to enlist the aid of a knowledgeable helper to complete it.ACMS Desktop Supportcan provide this kind of help for a fee.

Our Remote Printing Service, described here involves

  • Downloading and installing an HP DesignJet 800PS driver and a special DesignJet 800 "relay" print queue on your Mac, per the instructions found here

Once you've done this, to print to poster printer you will:

  • Connect to the ACMS Remote Printing Authorization web page where you will enter your sioplot printing account's username and password.
  • Select the sioplot print queue for your job from a pull-down menu's list of ACMS printers (always start with sioplot_np)
  • Open your document and send your job to the special DesignJet 800 "relay" print queue you installed, while keeping your connection to the service active by keeping your browser window open, per the instructions you'll see displayed there.

Check your print jobs

Check Your Print Jobs using the Print Queue Management Utility.

Check or Remove Jobs from the Print Queue

When you print to an ACMS laser printer, your job is not sent directly to the printer, but to an intermediate queue which holds it (your 'print job') until the printer is ready for it. Print jobs are sent from the queue to the printer in the order they are received.

Print Queue Management Utility shows a list of your print jobs, information about how many other jobs will print before yours, and also gives you the option to delete your jobs from the queue.

Hints on getting the best results

Solutions to Common Problems

Symptom: Remote printing is not working.

OS X
Going to the ppd file with a browser shows a bunch of text, it does not download. You have to instead "Save As" in to /Library/Printers/PPDs.
Make sure to set the document size and the paper size.
Make sure to set to LPD printing not IP printing.
Windows
Make sure to unpack the driver installer before running it.
Make sure to choose the "download as softfont" option.
Both
Make sure to use the preview queue.
Do not make the page width larger than 36 inches.

Symptom: Document with gradient background fails to print. More specifically, a Microsoft Powerpoint job that has a gradient background is submitted to the poster printer and either the background does not print or you receive an E-mail report that says, "Note: Your PostScript job aborted or otherwise did not process properly. Please contact ACMS User Services ( acs-consult@ucsd.edu , (858) 534 4060 ) for assistance."

Symptom: The sioplot_np preview of a document indicates a letter-sized image and does not show the whole document.

Diagnosis: The preview is showing an accurate indication of what would print. In this case, the job you sent specified "letter" size paper rather than your poster's page size. The most likely reason for this is that it's not enough that you specify the page size in PowerPoint; in addition, you need to pick one of the page sizes known to the HP DesignJet 800PS printer.

Solution: Click on the "Properties" button in the window which appears when you select "Print..." from PowerPoint's File menu. (Be sure that the "Name:" shows "HP DesignJet 800PS", so you'll get the right list of properties. Look at "Paper Size:"; it probably says Letter now. Pick the size you want from the list or pick the PostScript custom Page Size item from that list.

Once you've done this, the thumbnail you get back should reflect the choice you made instead of the default "letter".