Construction Information Technology Blog

Printing paper copies of online construction drawings

As the construction rapidly moves towards digital distribution of full format drawings some people are still wondering how to get the paper copies they are used to working with. The great news is they no longer need to have a complete set of drawings printed to work with only a limited number of those pages. The ability to view and reference all of the information for a project online eliminates the need to have paper copies of every page just to make sure there is no relevant information on it.

The cost of full format printers has come down drastically in the last few years to the point where an easy to use 24" roll feed printer (see HP Designjet 110 NR link below) can be purchased for less than $2,000. The cost per page for paper and ink of a 24" x 36" drawing on one of these machines is about $0.50. If you only need a limited number of pages it is hardly worth leaving your office to pick the pages up even if someone prints them for you at no cost.

For those people who have access to Hewlett Packard printers there's a great feature that some online document control services have incorporated called HP Instant PrintTM. This software greatly simplifies the process of downloading, batch printing and scaling copies. It is really ‘one click' printing. With the technical challenges diminishing there are very few reasons for anyone to be concerned about how they are going to get access to the paper documents they want as the digital document world expands.

Link to HP Printer options
http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/ca/en/sm/WF02a/18972-18972-3328061.html

Link to HP Designjet 110 plus NR
http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/ca/en/sm/WF06b/18972-18972-3328061-3328078-3328078-436089-423837.html