New CB printing madness

[DarkLord Of DForce]

Guys, we're having some real issues with printing here with the new CB.

This is on my son's desktop, Windows 7, and his laptop, Windows 7.
We've got an older HP 2210 "all in one" printer that has worked great
for us, until this. It prints out everything else fine, including everything
from the old CB.

Here is what it does. Load up your character, print, and it will print
the first 2 sheets of the character, then on the 3rd sheet, it stops at
one line (approx 1/4th of the page) then spits it out, followed by
the rest of the characters sheets, all blank.

If you pick a single page, or a range of pages, it then will print out
a totally random page, not what you selected.

This is on both characters we imported from the old CB, and any
characters created fresh from the new CB.

Any suggestions are most welcome. Thanks!

 

[Prestidigitalis]

I have found that it generally works better to "print" to a PDF, and then print the resulting PDF file. On my Mac, printing to a PDF is built-in; on my sucky old Windows box, I installed something from CutePDF and that did the trick.

 

[mattcolville]

Guys, we're having some real issues with printing here with the new CB.

This is on my son's desktop, Windows 7, and his laptop, Windows 7.
We've got an older HP 2210 "all in one" printer that has worked great
for us, until this. It prints out everything else fine, including everything
from the old CB.

Here is what it does. Load up your character, print, and it will print
the first 2 sheets of the character, then on the 3rd sheet, it stops at
one line (approx 1/4th of the page) then spits it out, followed by
the rest of the characters sheets, all blank.

If you pick a single page, or a range of pages, it then will print out
a totally random page, not what you selected.

This is on both characters we imported from the old CB, and any
characters created fresh from the new CB.

Any suggestions are most welcome. Thanks!

I'm going to take a wild stab in the dark and say your printer doesn't have enough memory to handle then 600+mb file the CB spools.

 

[hafrogman]

I'm going to take a wild stab in the dark and say your printer doesn't have enough memory to handle then 600+mb file the CB spools.

This.

I have found that it generally works better to "print" to a PDF, and then print the resulting PDF file.

And this.

For some reason, the Character Builder's output is ridiculously large. It's printing everything as a high-resolution image instead of a combination of text, and backgrounds and images like the old builder seemed to.

Even my workplace's high end, replaced every year on lease agreement, workhorse type printer takes a minute a page to print these sheets. If your printer still can't handle the .pdf that CutePDF puts out (which will still be 5+ MB), then you should at least be able to print a few pages at a time normally.

 

[Prestidigitalis]

I'm going to take a wild stab in the dark and say your printer doesn't have enough memory to handle then 600+mb file the CB spools.

I don't normally do this, but...

***headdesk***
***headdesk***
***headdesk***

I'm starting to get the feeling that the real meta-issue with the CB is that WotC does not yet realize that their new publication strategy makes software development a core competency they MUST have in house.

 

[Ryujin]

Go to the properties page for your printer object (right-click printer, then "properties" or "printer properties" in Win7). Go to Advanced. Make sure that the printer object is set to "spool" the jobs, not "print directly to the printer."

Barring that solving the problem get one of the programmes that allows you to print to a PDF file, as an intermediate step, then print the resulting PDF instead.

 

[mudbunny]

I don't normally do this, but...

***headdesk***
***headdesk***
***headdesk***

I'm starting to get the feeling that the real meta-issue with the CB is that WotC does not yet realize that their new publication strategy makes software development a core competency they MUST have in house.

I am not sure that this is the fault of WotC in this case. Apparently, printing in Silverlight results in Bitmap files.

Making printing easier in Silverlight 4 | davidpoll.com
Silverlight 4 Printing Feature : The Official Microsoft Silverlight Site

 

[renau1g]

It is something they've chosen to work in and should expect their CS's to be printed so either they didn't think that older computers would have problems or expect people to have to complete an extra step by printing to PDF and then printing that way. Another ex. of a reduction in utility of new CB by increasing the time and steps it takes me to complete and print a usable PC.

The offline builder didn't have this problem and they chose to create this new software so yes I think they should be held to some expectation of blame on this.

 

[UnknownAtThisTime]

I don't normally do this, but...

***headdesk***
***headdesk***
***headdesk***

I'm starting to get the feeling that the real meta-issue with the CB is that WotC does not yet realize that their new publication strategy makes software development a core competency they MUST have in house.

Ditto.

I am an admitted WotC "apologist". I love the "products", I think the support is fine, and don't have any real issues with their direction in general or even the way they have communicated things. I am not considering goiung to another vendor for my RPG. I want Wizards to succeed.

But, the CB currently has some major and very tangible flaws if it is expected to be a viable tool that players are to use going forward. It is more than "growing pains" and "the nature of software development" with a few "bugs". It demonstrates a lack of either preparedness or ability within a core team that will be VERY important to the company's success.

The model WotC has created demands releasing a product like the CB that is much tighter than this product ending up being on "go live".

 

[UnknownAtThisTime]

I am not sure that this is the fault of WotC in this case. Apparently, printing in Silverlight results in Bitmap files.

Mudbunny, this is not a personal attack on you, but that is exactly the type of attitude that concerns me, and hope WotC proper does not share it.

Wizards selected Silverlight as the platform for their product, and very well better have known how the customer would interface it, and what environments they were likely to be opperating in.

See my post above. The CB is central enough to the WotC strategy that they should have done a much better job in requirements definition, development, QA, and overall project management. The fact is they have not - and that is troublesome. They have significant repairing to do.