I have a friend, Cat Rosengren, who is an artist who makes handmade custom tiles for very important projects. She's an amazing artist who puts her heart and soul into each piece. Although she's located in Iowa at Lakota Tile Studio, she works on projects all over the nation. Every time I see photos of her latest projects I am in awe! If you are a designer, remodeler, contractor, interior decorator and happen on my blog for plotter things, why not serendipitiously find a great place to get a special project done for your client?
Go to www.LakotaTileStudio.com (Link will open in another window.)

Here's an opportunity to be part of the Plotter Princess Army of Designjet Geeks...If you have Windows 8 and want to try to download Windows 7 Designjet drivers and see if you can get your Windows 8 computer to print to your old designjet, then check out this video and tell me if it works. I don't have Windows 8 so I can't test this myself but I do get a couple calls a week asking if it is possible to use Win8 with these old plotters:
Click Here to See the Video re: Loading Win 7 drivers in Win 8_


AND after you try it, you MUST report back using the COMMENTS section below! Well, I really can't force you, but it would be nice...and that's what we are all about here, being nice!

As my avid readers know, I always share the gems I find while researching a question for a customer. Today's question was "Can I print blueprints to scale on a 24" wide HP Designjet 500?" -- Since I know nothing of designing and drawing blueprints I can't give my opinions, but I can link to another website where there is a tutorial on how to do this:
Blueprints To Scale from 24" HP Designjet 500

I've often described for others how I unclog dried up HP cartridges using soaking in a bowl of very hot water, violently shaking the soaked cartridge over the kitchen sink until I see ink splashes, then wetting 6 folded up paper towels and pressing the head of the cartridge down on the 1 inch thick folded wet towels and releasing the downward pressure very slowly so the release is creating a suction that pulls the dried clots out of the miniscule holes that are the "jet" part of the Designjet. This almost always works...

Additionally today I've found another tutorial on clearing clogged jets. This one is written by someone involved in "refilling" cartridges. He uses a combination of hot water, ammonia and a frying pan! You'll need to check it out for yourself. I'm thinking it just might work...

Go here to check it out.

HP is constantly re-designing their website which makes it hard for someone like me to keep up with where things are. If I'm having trouble, you may also be having the same difficulty. Here's a link to the one page that will give you almost all info you need about your plotter:

PDF files can contain layered content if they are created from layered documents by using applications such as Adobe InDesign. As a result, a single page of the PDF file can contain different layers with different content. If you print a PDF that contains layered content, only the layer that is currently visible onscreen is printed. Acrobat Pro and Pro Extended let you specify which layer is visible and printable. Merge or flatten the layers in the PDF to determine if one of the layers is causing the printing problem.

Note: Merging or flattening layers can't be undone. For this procedure, use a copy of your PDF.

To determine which version of Acrobat you are using, choose Help > About Adobe Acrobat (Windows), or Acrobat > About Acrobat (Mac OS).

For Acrobat 8 Professional or later:

1. Make a backup copy of your PDF file by choosing File > Save As and giving the copy a new name.
   
2. Open the copy and choose Advanced > PDF Optimizer. If asked whether you want to save and continue, click Yes.
   
3. Select Discard User Data.
   
4. Select Discard Hidden Layer Content And Flatten Visible Layers, and then click OK.
   
5. When prompted, save the Optimized PDF with another new name.
   
6. Open the Layers panel (if the Layers panel is not visible, choose View > Navigation Panels > Layers). Click the Options pop-up menu, and then select either Merge Layers or Flatten Layers. Merged layers acquire the properties of the layer into which they are merged. Flattening layers discards any layer content that isn't visible onscreen. 
   
7. Save the PDF file and try to print it.

For Acrobat 7 Professional:

1. Make a backup copy of your PDF file.
   
2. Open the copy and choose Advanced > PDF Optimizer.
   
3. Click the Clean Up tab.
   
4. Select Remove Hidden Layers Content and Flatten Layers, and then click OK.
   
5. When prompted, save the Optimized PDF with another new name.
   
6. In the Layers panel, choose Options, and then select either Merge Layers or Flatten Layers. Merged layers acquire the properties of the layer into which they are merged. Flattening layers discards any layer content that isn't visible onscreen.
   
7. Save the PDF file and attempt to print it.