On Jun 11, 11:58*pm, Jim Adney wrote:
On Wed, 11 Jun 2008 17:26:31 GMT John Robertson
wrote:

Jim, if you live in a medium sized city chances are you have a company
that copies architectural drawings. These guys have continuous feed
photocopiers that will copy almost ANY length of paper!

Interesting thought. I didn't know that such things existed. I can ask
around. It's likely that if I had more than one made at the same time,
each one might be cheaper.

Yep. They do. The only downside is that you are stuck with whatever
default width the machine takes. We keep one in the office that is set
for 42" as the standard width. Lots of waste for small drawings. It is
"scanner-to-plotter" HP technology and so does color (very nicely) as
well. NOT CHEAP. It also operates (with different dyes and/or inks) on
vinyl, finished fabrics, sticky-back or slick paper - even more
expensive.

On the other hand, as the entire system is computerized, we often will
print-in-parallel so as not to waste paper. We can scan one 18" banner
into the system and print two out on the 42" stock with good margins.
If you are using 8.5 x whatever originals, you could print four rows
in parallel. All this can be set up after the initial scan and before
the *expensive* "PRINT" button is hit. 11 x 17 fold-outs can also be
accomodated in the initial set-up without (much) waste.

As William notes below, the length that can be plotted/printed is
limited only by the length of the printer-stock roll.

Peter Wieck
Melrose Park, PA