Since my last post yesterday, I've recieved a few more responses that
differed from those in my first sum.  Thanks to Scott Schrader, William
Whitlock, and Gerald Noonan for their advice.  Gerald's suggestion pointed
me in the right direction:
        When I reread your problem, I wonder if it might be caused by
something
        similar to problems I have had in printing. I formerly was using a
Lexmark
        OPTRA R+ printer. This laserprinter can accept HPL or PostScript
language. I
        needed to use PostScript because only with PostScript what fills
other than
        the Carto print properly. However, when I tried to print with
PostScript
        from ArcView version 3.0 -- I think that was the version -- I could
watch as
        my printer display showed that it was receiving data. Then the
printer would
        say that it was flushing its buffer. Nothing got printed except
blank pages.
        I finally ended up pausing printing in Windows and getting a
temporary print
        file. I opened the temporary print file up in a word processor and
found
        that ArcView was generating a command to flush the buffer. This
command
        somehow became inserted before the command to print and eject a
piece of
        paper. There were lengthy discussions between Lexmark and ArcView
        technicians. Lexmark technicians told me that ArcView should not
have
        generated the offending code. I found that if I went in with the
word
        processor and removed just a single line of code, I could then later
send
        the print file to the printer and have things print correctly.

I followed Gerald's advice & printed the job (an Arcview layout) to a ps
file.  It didn't seem to contain any recognizable
command to flush the job, but when I sent the ps file to Adobe Distiller,
the process was interupted with the message:
        Start Time: Friday, November 16, 2001 at 2:17 PM
        Destination: W:\Planning\Long Range Planning\Open Projects\General
Plan 2020\Technical Data & Products\Background documents\Housing\arcview.pdf
        Source: arcview.ps
        %%[ Error: undefined; OffendingCommand:
s8W-!s8W-!s8W-!s8W-!s8W-!s8W-!s8W-!s8W-!s8W-!s8W-!s8W-!s8W-!s8W-!s8W-!s8UE;
]%%
        %%[ Flushing: rest of job (to end-of-file) will be ignored ]%%
        %%[ Warning: PostScript error. No PDF file produced. ] %%
        Distill Time: 11 seconds (00:00:11)
        **** End of Job ****

We then printed the same view in a different layout using the same
AV-->ps-->Distiller-->pdf & there was no problem with that output and a pdf
file was created.  Since the layout was a different size, we copied all
components from the offending layout and pasted them into a new E sized
layout, and it too was just fine.  We then sent the job directly to the
plotter and viola! it printed just fine.  We haven't figured out what was
wrong with the first layout, but if you are having similar problems, try
copying to a new layout & printing. This will be the first thing I try if
the problem rears it ugly head again.

Other possibly useful suggestions were sent in by William Whitlock:

        Our office has an HP1050C and had memory problems when printing from
ArcView
        3.2.  Maybe our solution will work for you.

        First, in processing the files for printing, a large amount of
memory is
        used.  I don't understand it but one day, I watched as 82 mb was
used on the
        C:\  in spooling to print a single layout created from a drg 7 1/2'
        topographic map and several simple point shape files.

        To resolve our problem we did two things.

        First we added a 64 mb memory module to the printer.  This helped
some.

        Second, I was running out of memory on my C:\ drive.  This is where
the
        spooling is completed for the print file.  I moved the spooling to
another
        drive.  This was accomplished by going to start, settings, printers,
file,
        server properties, advanced, then changing the spool folder to
another
        drive.  This might help if you are limited on space in the hard
drive where
        spooling occurs.  It worked for me.

Nathan Ogden sent a useful tip on how to capture a print file and send it to
the printer:
I doubt if it would work in my case as the print file contained the
offending commands, but
I was curious on how to send print jobs to a network printer.

        I used to notice AV 3.2a crash or stall during a large plot on my
1055CM
        when they were  > 200 Mb.  I get around it by printing to file and
then
        using two simple dos commands to send the file to the printer.  In
this way
        I have sent files over 400MB.  Still takes a while, but at least you
get the
        print.  I'm using 8.1 now but I haven't had any reason to plot files
that
        large without printing to file first.  This has the added benefit of
        producing an archivable printer file that you can send over again or
store
        for future reference on a CD.

        dos commands as follows for a network printer:

        net use lpt1: \\servername\HPDesign-sharename
        print /d:lpt1 c:\temp\arcview.prt

Many thanks to all who contributed.

William G Voigt           (415) 485-3366 voice
GIS Analyst               (415) 485-3334 fax
Dept Public Works         1400 Fifth Ave.
City of San Rafael  San Rafael, CA 94901