Printing issue

I expect I'm doing something wrong.  I'm a newbie, using LibreCAD after taking a UDEMY course on the program, have successfully printed a drawing that was just a square, but now I cannot print my second drawing, a simple view that fits easily on letter paper.

I'm using Version: 2.2.0.2
Compiler: GNU GCC 13.1.0
Compiled on: Jul 29 2023
Qt Version: 5.12.11
Boost Version: 1.75.0
System: Windows 10 (10.0)

On a Windows 11 box connected by network to a Canon TS9500 color printer.  The printer responds to print requests from LibreCAD by printing a blank page.

I've fussed with everything I can think of to no avail so I tried to view the file with AUTOCAD online.  That works, so my design does actually exist as is shown on the Print Preview in LibreCAD.

I've tried to export a PDF.  I get a blank 2k file every time.

I've installed LibreCAD on a Windows 10 box, copied the file there, it opens up just fine and shows my design in the Print Preview window but fails to print, again just producing a blank page in the printer, this time an ancient b/w laser printer.

This forum has a number of posts about printing but none seemed to apply to what I'm seeing so I'm creating this new thread.  One mentioned to pay attention to the PRINT TO FILE button but mine is not selected.

I tried, and failed for want of understanding, to select, cut, and paste the design into a new file just to see if that made a difference.  I'm going to recreate the file from scratch to see if there's something I've stumbled upon in my ignorance that hosed my original file.

I've uploaded my file.  You'll see it's trivial, a model train building about the size of a deck of cards.

Scale_House.dxf

Thank you very much to anyone that can help a newbie past this simple hurdle.
Allison

The file is o.k. Printing and pdf export work for me.
Scale_House.pdf
I have no definite clue what can be the reason.
Maybe you had printing off in the layer list?
Something with the print margins?
Try changing the scale in print preview and back to 1:1. Try Center to page and fit to page.

I tested 2.2.1 and 2.2.2 branches.

The latest builds work for me.

dellus wrote

The file is o.k. Printing and pdf export work for me.
Scale_House.pdf
I have no definite clue what can be the reason.
Maybe you had printing off in the layer list?
Something with the print margins?
Try changing the scale in print preview and back to 1:1. Try Center to page and fit to page.

Thanks for the help.  I fussed with more settings, including scale, margins, line weight, and colors and something I did helped, I can now export to PDF and the printer works.  Unfortunately, I don't know precisely what I did to solve the issue so I've missed a learning opportunity but I'm back to creating.  Thank you for your interest.
Allison

For batch processing, you may also use LibreCAD as a dxf to PDF converter.

Run the app with the command dxf2pdf and the dxf file name

LibreCAD dxf2pdf foo.dxf

dendyal wrote

Thanks for the help.  I fussed with more settings, including scale, margins, line weight, and colors and something I did helped, I can now export to PDF and the printer works.  Unfortunately, I don't know precisely what I did to solve the issue so I've missed a learning opportunity but I'm back to creating.  Thank you for your interest.
Allison

I found it.  I had inadvertently selected the APPLY PRINT SCALE TO LINE WIDTH.  Since I've forced the scale to be fixed at 1:1, I don't understand why that was wrong but selecting that control proved to be the definitive error.   Now I'm thinking my PDF files and printer outputs were blank because the lines were too faint to see.  They're all fine now.  Just thought I'd mention this in case another newbie falls into this same issue.
Allison

Previously, the default layer has default line width of 0(meaning 1 pixel).

Starting our next release 2.2.1, the default will be 0.25mm bby default: layer 0 and line width 0

dendyal wrote

I found it.  I had inadvertently selected the APPLY PRINT SCALE TO LINE WIDTH.  Since I've forced the scale to be fixed at 1:1, I don't understand why that was wrong but selecting that control proved to be the definitive error.   Now I'm thinking my PDF files and printer outputs were blank because the lines were too faint to see.  They're all fine now.  Just thought I'd mention this in case another newbie falls into this same issue.
Allison

APPLY PRINT SCALE TO LINE WIDTH compares the scale the drawing was originally intended for and the scale chosen in Print Preview. So if original scale was 1:100 and now you want a miniature print in 1:200 then line widths are the half. The information for the originally intended drawing scale is taken from Option - Current Drawing Preferences - General Scale. Here you have 0.1, that's why you get the faint lines.
See here what is behind "General Scale":  
https://docs.librecad.org/en/2.2.0_a/guides/annotate.html#adjust-dim