Printing ABAQUS graphics

A quick way of printing ABAQUS/CAE graphics is to use ALT +PRINT SCREEN on the computer. This will copy an image of the active window to the Clipboard. You can then paste the clipboard contents into another file, such as a Word document, for printing.  The PRINT SCREEN, key, when pressed without the ALT puts an image of the full screen on the clipboard. The PRINT SCREEN key is usually located above the INSERT key.

In order to print directly from ABAQUS/CAE:   Instead of sending output to the printer, select the checkbox marked File, then select PS for the file type below, and finally enter a file name (either on your directory u:\your_user_name\filename or on D:\) in the box provided.  Then select OK.  This will print a postscript file named filename in the appropriate directory.  Finally, open Windows Explorer and drag the postscript file's icon onto the PsPrint icon located on the left hand side of your desktop.  This will send the file to the printer.

Contour plots will not print successfully using the standard procedure.
To print a contour plot you have two options:
   OPTION1
       (i)  Print the file in TIF format instead of ps (select TIF from the menu). Make sure you select
            `grayscale' in the print options instead of the default black and white setting.
       (ii) Double click on the TIF file in your directory.   The picture will open up in some random
            picture publishing program.  Select Print...  from the File... menu and send the picture
            directly to the printer.
  OPTION2
       You may already have saved some ps files containing contour plots.  To print these, first double
       click on the icon associated with the file.   This will produce a new file, named filename.pdf,
       in pdf format.
       Next find the program named c:\acrobat3\exchange\acroex32.exe (you can either find the
       icon for this program using Explorer, or you can type in the command in a DOS window. 
       Start the program (double click on the icon)   and then select File... Open... and read in the
      pdf file (file.pdf) stored in your directory.    You should see the plot appear on the screen.  Finally
      select File... Print... and send the picture to the printer.

WARNING:  ABAQUS/CAE, like many complex programs, is prone to random crashes.  To make sure you do not lose too much work on a crash, make sure you save the .cae file frequently.

In addition, make sure you save the .cae file on YOUR FILESPACE, not on the default directory d:/

The default directory is a local scratch disk, and all files on this disk will be deleted when you quit your session.