Fuzzy or low quality annotation on Maps.

[TerryAdams]

Hi All,

I have ArcGIS ver 10.1.  I have a map with annotation labels in it, and some of them are printing at a very low resolution or are appearing very fuzzy in the printout.  Cannot for the life of me figure out what is going wrong here.  Am using an HP Designjet Z6200 60inch printer.  Simply bumping up print setings does not solve the issue.  Looking very closely, it almost appears as if the badly printed annotation has some type of dropshadow or ghosting going on.    Reading on the web - I came across some information regarding halftone settings for printing, but this wasn't clearly explained and I'm none the wiser at this point.  I also came across information that suggested transparent layers could be to blame.  My map *was* full of transparent layers - so I took all these out and replaced all transparent stuff with solid colours.  No Dice.

I have Aerial imagery which I want to fade into the background around the map.  Then in the middle I have the Feature Classes etc etc making up the map.  First I tried making the imagery itself transparent.  Works a treat onscreen - but is that causing the annotation issue?  Then I tried putting a mask over the imagery and fading that.  All no dice.

If I can just get readable annotation then I'll be happy.

[DanPatterson_Retired]

I have moved this thread to Mapping since GeoNet Help is about help on using GeoNet

[WesMiller]

Not sure what the issue is, but have you tried exporting to a pdf and printing from the pdf. Sometimes i have success doing it this way when i'm having other printing troubles.

[TerryAdams]

Thanks Dan for putting me in the right area.  I admit though I *vastly* prefer the more classic forum layout.

Have tried exporting the map to PDF.  However when I did that I got additional symbology corruption.  For instance - I had a polyline layer on the map symbolised with a dotted and dashed line.  Exported to PDF this became a weird mix of solid line with random breaks.  The annotation still appeared low quality as well.

In addition, some polyline layers appeared fuzzy as well.

At this stage I think I will need to re-create the map from scratch without any transparency from the get-go and see where I end up.

Interestingly - when I print this map to our lower quality CAD printer (OCE colorwave 600) then I *don't* get any fuzzy linework or annotation.  But the printout is too low quality for what I need.

The information I read at the moment is that if you have a rasterized layer - or transparent layers in your maps then you can suffer pixelisation of other layers.  Sometimes you can increase your halftone quality settings to help the issue - but that isn't an option I seem to have.  You can put transparent layers as low down the order as possible on the map - but again no dice for me.

Frustrating.

[RobertScheitlin__GISP]

Terry,

   If you are talking about publishing a map to ArcGIS server then you need to ensure that text anti-aliasing is turned off (it is on by default). The anti-aliasing causes the annotation to appear fuzzy.

[TerryAdams]

Hi Robert,

Thanks for your reply.

In this instance, I am trying to print an A0 sized map onto HP Heavyweight Coated paper with an HP Designjet Z6200 printer.  The printer also has a Post Scipt upgrade installed.

A few things in addition:  I can create crystal clear PDF's or TIFF images from my ARCMAP session without issue.  When I view those onscreen they appear clean and fuzz free.  But if I try and *print* those images - I get the described issues happening.  Or If I print straight from my ArcMap project I get the fuzzing issues happening.

The very odd thing is that some annotation classes appear fine when printed, yet others print out terribly.

I've also noticed that some polygon layers are printing with a very grainy appearance as well, yet others are smooth and clear as I'd expect.  So I've tried a raft of printer driver changes, tweaks, and updates - but all to no avail so far.

It really looks as if the features affected are printing at an extremely low or downgraded resolution for some reason.  I will check the Anti Aliasing settings though and see if that helps.

[SepheFox]

Hi Terry, it seems as though your printer has to be the culprit in this case. It might be that it doesn't have enough memory to handle the job. Can you try printing your PDF to another high quality printer?

[TerryAdams]

Hi Sephe,  it certainly seems to be pointing toward the printer with all things considered I agree.  The printer has 1.5GB RAM and a 160GB HDD.  We had the previous/older model Z6100 printer and never had any issues like this.  The Z6200 has better specs so...... confusing upon first thoughts.  Unfortunately I don't have another printer with the same abilities that I can use for a comparison.  However, the lesser-able Océ Colorwave printer I *do* have does not display the same issues, but can't get the print job to the standard I need.

If there's a halftone setting etc etc that I'm missing perhaps?   It's well hidden if it does exist.

[SepheFox]

If there is such a setting, it would be in the printer software. I think your best option is to contact the printer manufacturer.

[TerryAdams · Accepted solution]

This issue ended up being none other than misaligned print heads on the HP Z6200 printer.  One of the heads were misaligned, while the rest were not.  This is why only some content was fuzzy or ghosted while other content was not.  The colours requiring the use of the misaligned print head came out bad - while everything else was good.

I simply performed a print head alignment on the printer and my map came out crystal clear after that.