I am thinking of purchasing a wide-format printer. Does Dress Shop support this type of printer?

I use a wide format printer(HP110PlusNR) with roll fed paper that comes 24 inches wide by 150 feet. Set up is not complex- the key is to realize you will be using custom sized paper for most.

In my case I set the paper width to a constant 24 inches but set the length for each pattern piece to 1 inch longer than what is described as paper length when you view the pattern in 25% scale. Very few pattern pieces require more than one column.

If you buy sheet feed paper you will set the "tiles" or page set up to paper width by paper length. The pattern will tile as needed to the dimensions.

I have owned older wide bed dot matrix equipment back in the late 90's and early 2000's and can tell you they drove me NUTs! old printers,combined with new computers are sort of like grandparents trying to play hop scotch.. at the end of the day with a migraine.
Just not worth the agony.

I conserve both ink and paper by printing custom lengths and using the quick/draft black ink only option as these large ink cartridges and seperate print heads are expensive! (approx $350/for all colors and black- but they do last a LONG Time) On the other hand my time is worth something and I print a LOT of patterns per week especially when testing for collections so the trade off is worth it!

I suggest you download the user manual BEFORE you buy and read it carefully. There was I believe 48 seperate steps in setting up my printer and the quick start guide was pictograms that were not a perfect match to the actual device. (took well over 3 hours!)The one time I called support I was transfered 8 times before someone had a clue. I got more help scanning an online user forum.

Sounds like I dont like her- but I love her!!
Kaaren

Thank you so much for responding. I was pretty sure it would work with any windows printer but wanted to be sure. I also use Bernina MyLabel and I know it would work with that software. I wanted to justify the cost and be able to use it with all of my pattern drafting software. It's for home use so it's hard for me to not feel guilty for buying one. I'm just so tired of taping all those pages together. The fit is worth it though. Thanks again!

I went ahead and ordered the HP designjet 111. Should be here next week. Will post my findings.

I tried the hp dj 111. Set up took a while because I initially used the disk to load drivers etc. Every time I tried to print to it from any program except a pdf, I got a blue screen and freeze-up. I finally had to un-install the printer, delete references to it in the system registry and then let windows download and install whatever driver it wanted. I'm using Windows 7 64bit. After I got that problem solved I'm able to print to it from any of my pattern drafting software.

I love not having to tape all those pattern pages together. Lazy me!