Revit 2012 printing issues

I read with interest the problems Alan over at Revit Learning Curve was having with printing from Revit 2012. More details on his challenges can be found here.......

http://cadalot-revitlearningcurve.blogspot.com/2011/04/printer-plotter-bugs-with-revit-2012.html

Now this opens up an interesting debate; Is this a bug with Revit 2012 or during the update of Revit 2012, has what ever changed made the drivers incompatible? In my view, two different items. Now I have never really been a big fan of Kip printers; they are cheap and do a reasonably good job, but they are hardly Oce Printers. But not everybody can afford Oce devices! I remember as far back as Revit 5 having stability issues when printing from Revit to a Kip printer. Anyway, after trying various different driver versions, we got one which provided reasonably good results.

Anyway, to the point of this post. Let's assume there is a genuine issue with 2012; who's fault was it and why wasn't it picked up before? Those that Beta tested the product or Autodesk? Now I will put my hands up and say, when I was testing Revit 2012 I did not attempt or try printing from the beta software, which I have to admit is very poor! Thinking about it, we all talk about the virtual model, but printing the deliverables is still part of the basic delivery process. So I wonder if anybody else tried printing during the beta? Alan did you try printing during the beta? because if you had, I wonder if you would have picked up the problem then? Should we be blaming Autodesk? I have visited the factory a number of times and I certainly didn't find a room packed full of all the latest printers run test plots from future versions of Revit.

I guess this is the real issue; we get so excited about the new functionality, yet we miss the fundamentals. The nature of software will mean there will be issues, the beta program is supposed to pick up these issues, but the fragmented nature of the Windows platform will mean that things sometimes get missed. I am sure Autodesk will put there hands up and say that there is an issue, which they will fix. Maybe it's not; it could fall on the printer firms to fix there drivers, if this is the case, you may be waiting a long time! However, its also up to those that get invited to test the software to help QA the product. Once upon a time I couldn't wait to get the latest version installed onto my laptop, nethertheless these days I take the view, wait until service pack 1!! ;-)

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad