GEAR PRO Printout

[[Jo...]]

We are having a printing issue with Gear Pro. Here's our dilemma:

We replace our broken HP Color Laser printer with a new one and we can't print directly from the result print-preview window like before anymore. We can still print the pdf copy just not directly through Gear Pro result print preview window. We are not having any print issue with Calypso result print preview, just with Gear Pro. Our IT has installed the latest printer driver, through the Microsoft Drivers update first then directly from HP website, but that did not work either. We even tried the older version but was not successful.

Here's our info:
Old printer - HP Color Laserjet Pro M454dn
New printer - HP Color Laserjet Pro M454dw
Calypso 2022 ServicePack 1 - version 7.4.0403
Gear Pro 2018 SP1 - version 6.0.2.0

If anyone has issue like this, your help is appreciated.

Joseph Khang

[[Ro...]]

Hi, what setting do you have in the Setup of GEAR PRO regarding the printer?
Did you try both possibilities?
Your Software version is an older one, did you try the latest version from the ZEISS Portal (GEAR_PRO_2018_6.0.0416_2021.03.23_Patch)?

[[Jo...]]

I have upgraded to the latest version 6.0.0416, and try to re-print but was not successful. I will look into the Gear Pro printer setup and see if I can do what you suggested.

Thanks for your help.

[[Jo...]]

I changed the setting as indicated in the "Printer device" section to the 1st option but was still unable to print. I even re-moved it from the Network and directly connect it to the PC and was not successful either. I can see the file on the printer queue getting spooled and prep for printing, and after a few seconds it disappear with nothing coming out.

I did try to send to other printers our network and 1 out of 3 printer was printing.

Like I stated in my original post, we were printing just fine until we got a new printer. Not sure what would be causing this issue. This new printer uses the same driver as the old one, but just not able to decode and print the Gear Pro printout like before. Shouldn't be this hard troubleshooting it.

Upgrading to new Grear Pro version or software will probably not solve this issue as far as I know. Gear Pro does not require a specialized printer that I'm aware of.

I will probably call Zeiss hotline and see if they are aware of anyone having this particular issue.

Any help is much appreciated.

[[Ky...]]

Hello Joseph,

I'll be honest, I've had much better luck with printers and Gear Pro in the later versions (using the new InvoluteNX evaluation rather than the older InvolutePro). I did write a document on that here:
https://portal.zeiss.com/knowledge-base?id=1341080

That being said, I might check this real quick:
Go into the presentation specifications of the program under drawing attributes. There should be an option for the "milimeter grid" or something. In the newer versions, there is an option to turn it off there, but I can't remember what it looked like in your version specifically. I would recommend changing the color there (maybe to white). I have seen issues being caused by that grid before when printing physically.

I hope this helps.

[[Jo...]]

I'm grateful for the information you've provided. After reviewing all the notes and documentations, I tried a bunch of different ways and found the best for my printout result. All I needed was just changing the "Background of millimeter grid" color to white under the "Drawing attributes" tab. That was the main culprit for affecting the printer not to accept the result printout. Even if I changed it to any other color besides white, it wouldn't print at all.

So far, it's printing good now. This is definite workaround. Hopefully this will help anyone that has been affected by it.

Thank you so much for your help. 🤣

PS - I have another printout need but that will be on another Post and not critical.

[[Ky...]]

I'm glad that worked. I've ran into that before several years ago. I think we were actually able to get it to work with green back then, or maybe black, but it's been too long and I can't remember anymore.

As I mentioned, the newer InvoluteNX reports don't seem to have this issue anymore, so a more permanent solution would be to update and move everything to that. The reports are effectively the same. The same data is in the same places, it's just a slightly more updated design. The only drawback would be if you use the listform template to copy data, but there are ways around that.