Adding a Printer

You can install new printers in your environment through a dedicated wizard.

Before you begin: You can only print a document if a default printer has been set up through the Printers tab.
See Also
SVG Interpreter
  1. Access the Printers tab.
  2. In the Printer List area, click Add.
  3. In the Add Printer Wizard dialog box, select the printer to be added by clicking the appropriate option.
  4. Click OK.

    Note that if you add a Windows printer, the dialog box displays standard setup parameters corresponding to the selected printer type. See your Windows guide for detailed information about this dialog box.

  5. In the Printer Properties dialog box, click the black arrow and choose the appropriate driver for the printer.

    Ask your system administrator which printers require which drivers.

    This list varies with your operating system.

    Important:
    • SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics): three types of graphic objects can be read in this format: vector shapes, images and text. For detailed information, browse the following Internet site: http://www/w3c.org.
    • CGM Software is intended for viewing applications but some restrictions apply such as: pixel images are not supported, the image size is fixed, polylines are converted into polybeziers (provided that their curves can be modified).

  6. In the Paper Format box, set the desired paper format options: default and maximum paper size, margins and orientation (portrait or landscape).

    Note:

    • V5/3DEXPERIENCE A0 roll format is 1189 mm large.
    • V5/3DEXPERIENCE A1 roll format is 841 mm large.

  7. In the Submission Scripts box, set the options to be applied when the print job is submitted.

    This box lets you specify:

    • The default output file name: each time you print a document, an output file is created at the location you specify in the box.
    • The default queue name: this box lets you choose which print queue to send the print job to.

  8. Optional: Use the Custom options to specify the location of your own submission scripts.
    Selecting these options activates the Edit Script... buttons which let you modify the script in the Runtime Script dialog box.

    You can create your own script using the following two environment variables contained in the default script:

    • %CATPRT_DOC_SHEETS_COUNT% indicates the number of sheets to be printed. This variable is automatically updated.
    • CATOUT=C:\DOCUME~1\ajt\LOCALS~1\Temp\catout_%CATPRT_DOC_SHEETS_NUM%.out indicates the location, name and number of the sheet where:
      • C:\DOCUME~1\ajt\LOCALS~1\Temp\ is the location of the sheet to be printed
      • catout_%CATPRT_DOC_SHEETS_NUM%.out indicates the name (stored in "catout.out") and number (stored in %CATPRT_DOC_SHEETS_NUM%.out) of the sheet. When printing multiple sheets, the sheet number is incremented automatically. For example, when using a PostScript printer, you can use this variable the following way set CATOUT=e:\Temp\test_%CATPRT_DOC_SHEETS_NUM%.ps to specify that the name of the sheet to be printed is "test.ps" and is located in "e:\temp".

    For an exhaustive list of all the environment variables you can use, see Environment Variables.

  9. Click Advanced Configuration... to define advanced configuration options for the driver.

    When a printer has been added to the list of printers, you can access advanced configuration options by right-clicking the printer from the list then selecting Configure.

  10. Click OK to return to the Printer Setup dialog box.

A printer configuration file named PLOT0000.xml containing all the options you set in the Printer Properties dialog box is created in $HOME/CATSettings/Printers/ which is the default location.

When printing to 3DS virtual printers, you can modify the default location of the configuration file through the Printers tab. The numbers of additional printers created are incremented by one, as follows: PLOT0001.xml, PLOT0002.xml, etc.

Important: The format of V4 plot configuration files is not compatible with the 3DEXPERIENCE format.