I have read and experienced many of the issues with color plotting with various color medium format printers that other people has written in messages, including several versions of the fiery print controller. . I have found a printer/copier that does work with AutoCAD/LDD 2004 & 5. The Ricoh 2228c is a 28ppm color, 32ppm BW printer/scanner/copier multifunction device. As a printer it supports: PCL 5C up to 600x600 DPI RPCS (Ricoh Custom printer language) 600x600, 1200x1200, and 1800x600 PostScript 600x600 & 1200x1200 Media up to 12x18 with 60lb Cover, or 90lb index paper, for a full bleed 11x17. AutoCAD will print correctly with the PCL 5c drivers including wipeouts, merge/overwrite settings, and ok true color & gradient fills. 600x600 is a draft mode and full color images and the truecolor entities are not completely smooth, but 90%+ people would not notice it. The RPCS ignores wipeouts but will properly run overlay/merge and true color/images are improved on the 1200x1200 and 1800x600 print modes. Postscript has errors on wipeouts, and ignores the merge/overlay setting on plotting. As a copier is always in 600x600 mode and scans a complete job before printing it. As a printer and copier is all the standard bells and whistles different paper sizes, single/double sided, staple, collate, ect. As a scanner it is easy to use from the front panel (just set resolution and destination either on the built-in HD or A FOLDER ON YOUR SERVER) and it can be a easy end-user situation - scan directly to PDF or a JPG. It will scan double sided paper, and put in the correct order for PDF's. For uncompressed Tif's for importing into AutoCAD it has a TWAIN driver will full control of the scanning process for changing bi-tonal threshold, color, white balance, gamma curve, ect. The only downside is 11x17 scans max out at 432 DPI with a file size of 100megs. A 8½x11 and 8½x14 can scan at higher resolutions. Small areas can be scanned at up to 1200dpi. The limit is 100megs in a single scan. Overall I give it a 4.5 out of 5. If anyone wants the cost per page and cost of the machine please e-mail me at p s a n u c c i a t t r c s o l N O S P A M u t i o n s d o t c o m. I am not a reseller or anything, just a satified user who finally found a color laser that WORKS! Remove NOSPAM and make it look normal to reply.
