Rotated Objects Print Incorrectly with the LaserWriter 8.x Printer Driver

When printing using the LaserWriter 8.0 or 8.1.1 printer driver, some objects may be rotated in an odd way. Drawings which printed properly with previous printer drivers will look askew with these two LaserWriter drivers.

This issue has been fixed with the LaserWriter 8.2 driver. (Please see the notes that come with this driver version.) Upgrading to the LaserWriter 8.2 driver is the best solution to this issue.

Since the objects in a document and their placement determine whether you will experience this issue, knowing how to create a document which exhibits the symptom, is central to knowing the workarounds. Here are the steps to recreate such a document:

1. Create an ellipse, arc, round-cornered rectangle, or in MacDraw II, MacDraw Pro or Claris CAD, a rectangle
2. Create a polygon
3. Draw one or more objects
4. Rotate the object you created in step 1
5. The polygon you created in step 2, and any object created after that, will be rotated to the same angle as the object you rotated in step 1

This issueinvolves the relative stacking order of the object in step 1 to the object in step 2 (the polygons need to be stacked "above" the rotated object for this to occur).

Workarounds:

- Move all poly-based objects (polygons, bezigons, etc.) to the back of the document
- Alternatively, if possible, move objects other than poly-based ones to the front
- Go back to using the LaserWriter 7.x driver

Additionally, you could also

-Save the document in EPSF format, re-open the EPSF file, and print that in its entirety

The symptom can occur when printing the document in the foreground or background, with either Postscript Level 1 or 2.

Also note that this issue isn't confined to MacDraw II, MacDraw Pro, Claris CAD, or Claris products in general. The issue has been found to occur when printing from other programs such as Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, ResEdit, PICT Detective, Canvas 3.0 and Canvas 3.5.

ClarisWorks and ClarisImpact do not exhibit this issue.

Interesting technical sidelight: in step 1 of the procedure above, the instruction calls for you to "create an ellipse, arc, round-cornered rectangle, or in MacDraw II, MacDraw Pro or Claris CAD, a rectangle." The reason for the difference with MacDraw II, Pro and Claris CAD, is that these products all internally "tell" the printer that a rectangle is actually a rounded rectangle - with the radius of the corners set to zero. So MacDraw and Claris CAD will exhibit this behavior, even with a rectangle, while other draw applications may not.