ISTech Support Forum
http://www.istechforum.com/YaBB.pl
Evo-ERP and DBA Classic >> Problem Reports - Sporadic >> Images printing as all black
http://www.istechforum.com/YaBB.pl?num=1338905702

Message started by David Waldmann on 06/05/12 at 07:15:02

Title: Images printing as all black
Post by David Waldmann on 06/05/12 at 07:15:02

We only print linked Thumbnail images on WO Travelers, so whether this may be more system wide I can't say.

Occasionally the image will print as an entirely filled black block. Most of the time I would re-print to screen where I could see it was fine, and then when I printed from the Preview it would print fine.

Today I had an entirely different scenario. We have an embedded image (not linked to an item) in the Detail section of the Traveler. This particular WO had three sub WOs (-1, -2 and -3) that were all printed on the same traveler. The image printed black on the first one and correctly on the other two (these were all on the same page). So I printed to screen and printed from the Preview. This time the images in the detail section printed fine, but the Thumbnail view of the linked image in the Header printed all black. Without exiting the Preview I printed again and this time everything printed fine.

:-?

Title: Re: Images printing as all black
Post by Vman on 06/05/12 at 12:52:47

I've had this problem with images we added to certain forms (Acknowlegements, Quotes, etc) for years.  In my case, it was necessary to exit EVO and restart to get the images to print right.  Just been living with it. :(

Title: Re: Images printing as all black
Post by David Waldmann on 06/05/12 at 13:23:56


Vman wrote:
If it ain't broke, don't fix it


But it IS broke...


;D

Title: Re: Images printing as all black
Post by carie on 06/05/12 at 13:31:18

This happens everytime I print a S/R Invoice - I have to go into SO-F to reprint for the company logo to print correctly.

Title: Re: Images printing as all black
Post by David Waldmann on 06/05/12 at 13:34:55

Wow. I would have a copy of the invoice without a logo and use that form when printing. I guess our problem is nothing...

Title: Re: Images printing as all black
Post by Vman on 06/07/12 at 10:51:48

It's not a bug, it's a feature ;D

Title: Re: Images printing as all black
Post by Kelloggs on 06/08/12 at 08:14:09

Ours prints OK. We don't have that problem. Or logo was convert it to a gray scale 8 bit.

Do you guys use color printers? how many bits is your logo?


:-?

Kelloggs


Title: Re: Images printing as all black
Post by David Waldmann on 06/08/12 at 08:18:01

We don't have a problem with the logo. It's always been B&W linked GIF thumbnails until this last time when it happened with the embedded graphic, which is also a B&W GIF. It's happened on both B&W and Color lasers.

Title: Re: Images printing as all black
Post by carie on 06/08/12 at 09:59:19

In our situation it is the logo that prints black -or- is missing (i forgot about that in earlier posts). It is a 30 KG jpeg. I have a jpeg else where in the documents that is 24KG and never have problems with it printing.

Title: Re: Images printing as all black
Post by David Waldmann on 10/04/12 at 13:36:19

I just printed 5 WO Travelers - it took 16 print sessions, 11 with black thumbnail images and 5 good ones...

:exclamation [smiley=undecided.gif]

Title: Re: Images printing as all black
Post by Lynn_Pantic on 10/04/12 at 14:05:15

I have had some cases where installing the latest drivers from the printer manufacturer has helped.

Title: Re: Images printing as all black
Post by David Waldmann on 10/05/12 at 04:23:42

My printer (Brother MFC-9970CDW) uses a built-in Windows 7 printer driver, and I keep Windows Updates up-to-date.

Title: Re: Images printing as all black
Post by shadowcaster on 06/29/13 at 08:47:41

The black boxes seem random sometimes I can print a traveler and its fine next time its 80 % black boxes. sometimes its just 1 or 2.

evo
driver
memory
printer memory

whats a good way to test for these issues ?

Title: Re: Images printing as all black
Post by David Waldmann on 06/30/13 at 16:04:47


shadowcaster wrote:
whats a good way to test for these issues ?


If you can figure that out you'll be a millionaire. Or at least a well appreciated fellow forum user  ;D

Title: Re: Images printing as all black
Post by shadowcaster on 08/24/13 at 08:25:24

keeping images at 300x300 or less seems to be where the sweet spot is.


Title: Re: Images printing as all black
Post by David Waldmann on 08/30/13 at 04:58:57

Hmmm. Out of over 1200 images, only 26 are less than 300 wide and 57 are less than 300 high. A total of 11 are 300 or less in both dimensions.

However, considering the possibility that the size may be a factor we'll start tracking which ones we have issues with. File size can't be an issue - the largest is 12K...

Title: Re: Images printing as all black
Post by TMC Trailers on 09/03/13 at 21:16:38

We're having the same problem

Title: Re: Images printing as all black
Post by shadowcaster on 09/05/13 at 15:36:17

make a backup copy of your images.
convert all of them to less than or equal to  300 x 300

Xnview is free and you can do it in batch mode so its painless

run some boms

ahh ! much better

Title: Re: Images printing as all black
Post by David Waldmann on 09/05/13 at 19:21:13

I don't have a problem with batch processing, but a lot of our pics will become very unpretty if we resize them. Reason being that they are line drawings, so depending how the program resizes, you end up with lines of differing widths, or even some dropout. That would be the least of it, since we also have dimensions, and when you try reducing bitmap numbers the results are often unreadable. We'd have to go back to the original CAD drawings and recreate the GIFs.

Title: Re: Images printing as all black
Post by shadowcaster on 09/07/13 at 07:00:14

sounds like we need a vector format for thumbs if your using line drawings.

anyway to update the cad to thumbs you might use wintask. (http://www.wintask.com)

use something like this  (run it in a dos box in the root directory of your drawing files.)

dir *.iam /b/s/d > c:\iam.txt

to make a list of all the drawing files  (file names will be in the file created on your C drive. iam.txt in this case)

Get that in excel and feed it to a wintask script that drives the cad program to redo all the thumbnails.

here's an example of a wintask script
you simply record these like a word macro.
I added the program lines the loop thru this.

it basically copies the file name with path from excel
uses that to open the file in the cad program
then uses the cad program to make the thumbnail
returns back to excel
marks the file name as processed by changing the color of the cell and moves down to the next file name.

then it loops

I've used this technique to do some big jobs in DBA and other programs that would have taken weeks or months manually.

from my experience:
use dba classic for this   I didn't have much luck with evo

use keyboard commands where ever you can. I find it works better/faster than mouse clicks.

sometimes these scripts will stall so you have to restart them. Still its way easier to babysit a script than to do the work manually.

I usually run them on an unused PC using gotomypc so I can run them in a window and use my PC for other things while the script is doing its magic.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
'example wintask script.

a = 0
pause 10 ticks
Repeat
#SendKeysDelay = 10



UseWindow("EXCEL.EXE|EXCEL7|pfiptlist",1)
     SendKeys("<Ctrl c><Alt>")

UseWindow("INVENTOR.EXE|MDIClient|Autodesk Inventor 11|1",1)
     SendKeys("<Alt f>")

'UseWindow("INVENTOR.EXE|Afx:00400000:8:00010011:00000000:06DD04CD|Autodesk Inventor 11",1)
     ChooseMenu(Context,"&Open...")

'UseWindow("INVENTOR.EXE|Edit|Open|1",1)
     SendKeys("<Shift <Ins>><Enter>")

'UseWindow("EXCEL.EXE|EXCEL7|",1)
'UseWindow("INVENTOR.EXE|#32770|Open",1)
'      Click(Button,"&Open")
'-=-=-=-=-=-=
'zoom all and turn off work planes

           SendKeys("<Alt v>")

'UseWindow("INVENTOR.EXE|Afx:00400000:8:00010011:00000000:06DD04CD|Autodesk Inventor 11 - []",1)
     ChooseMenu(Context,"O&bject Visibility|All Workfeatures")

UseWindow("INVENTOR.EXE|AfxFrameOrView70u||1",1)
     SendKeys("<F6>")

     '-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

UseWindow("INVENTOR.EXE|AfxFrameOrView70u||1",1)
     SendKeys("<Alt f>")

'UseWindow("INVENTOR.EXE|Afx:00400000:8:00010011:00000000:06DD04CD|Autodesk Inventor 11",1)
'UseWindow("INVENTOR.EXE|Afx:00400000:8:00010011:00000000:06DD04CD|Autodesk Inventor 11 - [PFBVK00001]",1)
     ChooseMenu(Context,"Save Copy &As...")

UseWindow("INVENTOR.EXE|Edit|Save Copy As|1",1)
     SendKeys("<Home>k:\thumbspc\<Tab>")

UseWindow("INVENTOR.EXE|#32770|Save Copy As",1)
     ChooseItem(Combo, "4", "PNG (*.png)", single, left )
     Click(Button,"&Save")

UseWindow("INVENTOR.EXE|AfxFrameOrView70u||1",1)
     SendKeys("<Alt f>")

'UseWindow("INVENTOR.EXE|Afx:00400000:8:00010011:00000000:06DD04CD|Autodesk Inventor 11 - [PFBVK00001]",1)
'UseWindow("INVENTOR.EXE|Afx:00400000:8:00010011:00000000:06DD04CD|Autodesk Inventor 11 - []",1)
'UseWindow("INVENTOR.EXE|Afx:00400000:8:00010011:00000000:06DD04CD|Autodesk Inventor 11",1)

     ChooseMenu(Context,"&Close")

'-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
'say no to close save changes

UseWindow("INVENTOR.EXE|#32770|Autodesk Inventor 11",1)
     Click(Button,"&No")

'-=-=-=-=-=-

UseWindow("INVENTOR.EXE|MDIClient|Autodesk Inventor 11|1",1)
     SendKeys("<Alt>")

UseWindow("EXCEL.EXE|MsoCommandBar|Formatting",1)
     ClickMouse(Left,Down,575,10)
     ClickMouse(Left,Up,575,10)

UseWindow("EXCEL.EXE|EXCEL7|pfiptlist",1)
     SendKeys("<Down>")





pause 10 ticks
a = a + 1

Until a = 200



Title: Re: Images printing as all black
Post by David Waldmann on 09/09/13 at 05:35:08

Seems like some very helpful ideas you've got there, but I'm afraid it won't work for our application.

The CAD files we're using are letter size spec sheets, but we are only using a portion of that sheet as the thumbnail, the portion that has the actual drawing. The size and precise location of that drawing varies from item to item, so we'd have to capture a fairly large part of the drawing which in turn would make the details fairly small.

Here is a typical spec page. The red box is the part we need as a thumbnail.

http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c275/dwaldmann/IS%20Tech/1200-121_zps2f7c465f.gif

Title: Re: Images printing as all black
Post by shadowcaster on 09/10/13 at 06:05:40

We print drawings from word documents.
I do a copy link from Autocad and paste that into word,
and the word doc is printed with the traveler.
sometimes we need a large format drawing (size D or E) for a machine assembly.
these I print manually on the plotter although one of my guys sends the word docs to the plotter and they do print out fine large format even though at 8.5 x 11 you can barely read the words.
The vector format scales cleanly.

if you can save or convert your cad files to .WMF  thats a vector format and may work well for your situation. Autocad can do wmf. I never used one in dba though

it is listed as a supported format for thumbs.




Title: Re: Images printing as all black
Post by David Waldmann on 09/10/13 at 06:20:54

We can print the whole page no problem, as a linked document. But all we want is a thumbnail of the actual drawing itself because it's simple enough and small enough that all the specs are readable and right there on the traveler.

We're keeping track of which pics give us trouble to see if we can find any kind of pattern to it.

Thanks again for your help.

Title: Re: Images printing as all black
Post by shadowcaster on 09/12/13 at 06:29:15

I just tried a WMF (vector format) for a cad drawing of a circuit board and printed it about 1/4 inch square
when I zoomed in it looked quite good.

I may use this for some of my items.




Title: Re: Images printing as all black
Post by David Waldmann on 09/12/13 at 06:59:57

My CAD program (Autosketch, a super lite version by Autodesk) makes bitmap WMFs...

Title: Re: Images printing as all black
Post by shadowcaster on 09/14/13 at 07:55:20

It's always something.

There are DWG and DFX to WMF converters.


Title: Re: Images printing as all black
Post by EMI Ann on 02/04/15 at 11:16:30

Latest update on computers, printers and EVO, and it still does it from time to time. We have a small image box that sometimes prints fine, and sometimes blacks out. The only way to make it stop is to exit the program, restart, and rerun the print dialog. We print to the screen first, and then print from there to the printer (great error catcher), and it only shows up on the paper, never the screen.
Tis a puzzlement....
Ann

Title: Re: Images printing as all black
Post by shadowcaster on 02/04/15 at 13:26:20

is it larger than 300 x 300 ?

Title: Re: Images printing as all black
Post by EMI Ann on 02/05/15 at 08:49:21

The graphic in question is on invoices, and is a bmp, 683 x 315, but that should not be the issue. The program randomly blacks it out and no other program I am using has this issue on printing. I can have 6 printed to preview, and when I send them to the printer,  4 will print fine, and 2 will print with a black box instead of the graphic. They all will look fine in the preview. Workstation or login make no difference; it can do it anywhere, at any time, or not, as the winds take it. The only way to stop it is to log off, and re-open the program, and it is sporadic. It appears to have been a problem for a long time, though, since it has 2 pages of comments. I have noted that when I right click the image, the entry "reprint on overflow" is not checked. Could it possibly be that? Could cumulative size in a bunch be the problem, and not the specific size of the graphic, so much as the idea that a larger one, a number of times at once, would "fill the bucket" more quickly, causing it to black it out as a block rather than print the details?
Hmmmm,
Ann

Title: Re: Images printing as all black
Post by shadowcaster on 02/06/15 at 15:21:20

Try reducing the bit depth of the image. try 8 or 16 bits. or black and white.

I find EVO has issues with complex shaded images and its worse as they get larger.
I've change logo images and has some the black out 100 % of the time. When I made them smaller and less bit depth and it fixed the issue (mostly).

there seem to be something that builds up. Maybe a memory leak in the printer driver or a buffer that overflows on itself.



Title: Re: Images printing as all black
Post by Lynn_Pantic on 02/06/15 at 17:51:44

I have also observed that HP Printers (of course, one of the most popular brands) seem to be the worst in this regard which also supports John's comment that it may be some sort of memory leak in the printer driver.

Title: Re: Images printing as all black
Post by EMI Ann on 02/10/15 at 10:01:32

We're using a Lexmark and a Brother, for the most part. Strange.
Ann

Title: Re: Images printing as all black
Post by EMI Ann on 03/13/15 at 08:06:48

Well, I ran all the available patches on Saturday, and ticked the "reprint on overflow" on the image details within the rtm setup, and it still does it. I have found, though, that if I choose to print as pdfs after printing to the screen, and then print the pdfs, it doesn't happen. The pdfs always print just fine, and when you come down to it, a pdf document is one big image file. Extra steps to not waste paper, but at least I don't have to exit and reboot EVO. Hoping for a magic wand soon...
Ann

Title: Re: Images printing as all black
Post by David Waldmann on 03/13/15 at 08:40:04

We just print to screen and keep printing from there to paper until it comes out right. Sometimes it's the first time, 10 times in a row, and then sometimes we eventually give up.

It's a waste, but paper only costs .02/sheet.

Title: Re: Images printing as all black
Post by shadowcaster on 03/13/15 at 10:32:11

I think exiting and restarting EVO is the wand at this point.

Title: Re: Images printing as all black
Post by shadowcaster on 09/13/17 at 13:04:12

Printed 1700 pages of pick slip today and not 1 black box.

using 2017.2

I don't know when this was fixed but it looks like a winner !



ISTech Support Forum » Powered by YaBB 2.1!
YaBB © 2000-2005. All Rights Reserved.