With the Windows system printer driver, you can use whatever plotter or printer you have configured with Windows. Any printing device supported by Windows can be used with the Windows system printer configured as the AutoCAD LT plotter.
For pen plotters, it is recommended that you use the nonsystem driver appropriate to your device rather than the Windows system printer drivers. For raster output devices, it is recommended that you use the Windows system printer driver.
The system printer driver supports raster output. However, the ability of the device connected as the system printer to output raster and vector data sent by AutoCAD LT is limited by the amount of memory in the printing device.
If you have multiple Windows system printers, you can select the device from which to plot from within AutoCAD LT. This feature is useful, for instance, for using a LaserJet printer for word processing documents and a BubbleJet for AutoCAD LT drawings.
Setting up the Windows system printer for AutoCAD LT consists of two parts:
If you use the Windows system printer, all handshaking operations and the I/O port handling are managed by Windows. You cannot change the I/O port used by AutoCAD LT by using the AutoCAD LT configuration process. You must do this through Windows Control Panel. When you are using a Windows system printer, the printer configuration is specified by settings in the Windows Print Setup dialog box. AutoCAD LT does not control these settings.
It is possible to reconfigure AutoCAD LT at plot time to send your plot to a different Windows system printer. You can print to any networked Windows system printer.
If you reuse a saved AutoCAD LT plot configuration for a Windows system printer, the current Windows settings for that printer apply. AutoCAD LT restores only the settings saved in AutoCAD LT.
If you configure a nonsystem driver for a locally connected plotter and you also configure a Windows system printer driver for the same locally connected plotter, the driver is not able to connect directly to the local port, because the Windows system has control over it. The driver output is rerouted to the Windows spooler.
To plot when your nonsystem driver output is rerouted, be sure that Windows Control Panel settings for that serial port are correct. They should match the settings of the plotter and should be appropriate for the cabling you have used. You can verify that these settings are correct by printing to the conflicting Windows system printer.
Plotting from a nonsystem driver through the spooler is similar to plotting to a file because there is only one-way communication with the plotter. Performance varies depending on the device.