front panel doesn't print

[chirs73]

I am trying to print my VI. I can see the front panel in Print Preview. When it prints the front panel page is blank. Anybody else run into this problem and how did you fix it.

Thanks

Chris Gallo

[smercurio_fc]

You mentioned Print Preview, so I'm reading that as you're using File->Print. Is it just the front panel that's blank? Does it work when printing the block diagram? It may be a printer driver issue. Are you printing to a laser printer or inkjet. What driver are you using? Does it do it on other printers?

[chirs73]

I am using File>Print. The block diagram prints fine. I know it is not a driver issue because in earlier revisions of my VI the front panel was printing fine. I have been printing to the same printer the whole time. It's a laser printer/copier.

[Mythilt]

Are you using any decorations on the front panel?  Perhaps drawing a border around the panel? 

(Reason I ask is that I once had a border decoration print over the controls it was supposed to be behind.  I'm not sure what happened, since I could access the controls while running the VI, but for some reason, when I went to print, it thought it was in front of the controls.  After selecting the border and sending it to the back again, it fixed the problem.)

Message Edited by Mythilt on 08-05-2008 10:00 AM

[chirs73]

The only thing I  have changed is the color of the front panel. I tried highlighting all the objects on the front panel and move them to the front but it still doesn't print properly.

[Joseph_Loo]

I have found that printer that print with pcl doesn't always print things out correctly. In gerneral a postsript printer will do provided there is enough memory available for the printer. There are couple of things you could check this out. Download a free copy of ghostscript and gsview.

http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/

Print the page out to a postscript file.

View the post script file via ghostscript.

If it shows up properly then you have a printer issue/

[chirs73]

Mr. Loo, If you haven't read all the posts let me catch you up to speed. I was able to print the front panel of my VI just fine till I changed the background color of the front panel. I can see the front panel in File->Print under Print Preview. The printer has not changed so I am pretty sure it has something to do with the background color.

[Mythilt]

If you change the color back to the default, does the problem go away?

[chirs73]

i tried going back to default but it still prints just a blank box for the fornt panel

[Joseph_Loo]

I understand what you are saying. When the image of the front panel becomes sufficiently complicated, it affects the printout on the printer. It has nothing to do with the print preview. It can show up perfectly fine but the printer can not print the details out correctly/