Handling different prompts - plot command?

Having some trouble here. I am using lisp to print drawings to the user's default printer. There are about three different printers we use. Two of them require that you enter "11x17" to print on 11 x 17 paper and the other requires that you enter it as "11x17 (11 x 17 in.)"

Without messing around with the paper sizes for the printers or changing any other printer settings, is there another way I can do this? I tried retrieving the name of the default printer using the code below (that way I could enter the responses based on which printer the job would go to) but for some reason it does not return the name of the default, it gives me the name of another printer. I've tried it over and over and rechecked my default...no luck.

(vla-get-defaultoutputdevice (vla-get-output (vla-get-preferences (vlax-get-acad-object))))

Any help would be greatly appreciated! TIA.
Marti

 

And actually I guess this isn't handling different prompts, I just need a good way to give different responses to the same prompt...

 

I don't know the answer--but I can confirm that I was able to reproduce
this. I have about 10 printers installed on my PC. Rather than spell them
all out, I'll just call them A, B, D etc.

* My default printer (windows level default) is A.
* In acad's config dialog my default printer is B.
* When I start a new dwg file and start page petup, it says "None" in
plotter.
* But when I run your code, it returns C. Guess what--C was NEVER my
default printer at any level and was VERY rarely ever used to print from
acad..

default printer. There are about three different printers we use. Two of
them require that you enter "11x17" to print on 11 x 17 paper and the other
requires that you enter it as "11x17 (11 x 17 in.)"

any other printer settings, is there another way I can do this? I tried
retrieving the name of the default printer using the code below (that way I
could enter the responses based on which printer the job would go to) but
for some reason it does not return the name of the default, it gives me the
name of another printer. I've tried it over and over and rechecked my
default...no luck.

 

Code:

;;04/09/04 Bill Zondlo -received from AutoDesk NG
;;programming examples to get plotter info
;;
(defun get_plotter_names ()
(vla-RefreshPlotDeviceInfo (vla-get-activelayout (vla-get-activedocument (vlax-get-acad-object))))
(vlax-safearray->list
(vlax-variant-value
(vla-getplotdevicenames
(vla-get-activelayout
(vla-get-activedocument
(vlax-get-acad-object)))))) ;gets list of installed plotters
) 

Code:

;;04/09/04 Bill Zondlo -received from AutoDesk NG
;;programming examples to get plotter info
;;
(defun get_paper_sizes ()
(vla-RefreshPlotDeviceInfo (vla-get-activelayout (vla-get-activedocument (vlax-get-acad-object))))
(vlax-safearray->list
(vlax-variant-value
(vla-getCanonicalMediaNames
(vla-get-activelayout
(vla-get-activedocument
(vlax-get-acad-object)))))) ;gets all media names
)

Bill

 

Thanks to both for your help. I really appreciate it.

And Bill, those are both great. They are not exactly what I was looking for, but I will definitely put them to use if I don't come up with anything else. =)

 

You're welcome,

I didn't use them much myself but they helped me figure out what I needed to do here.

Bill