colour changing

Hi I'm using 2008 and need to print to my adobe printer to achieve a black and white pdf.

This is normally easy using .ctb files but I have colours of true colour RGB values which cannot be addressed by a .ctb. It has been suggested that I use an .stb but this has proved successful for one drawing (with a bit of tinkering) but as I need to pdf over 200 drawing this is going to be too messy/error prone,time consuming. I finally had the brainwave i saving the drawing, once emptied, as'host.dwg' and importing eachdrawing individually but that only partiallly worked.

It has also been suggested that by best hope is a lisp that will change the colour of all the entities in a drawing, ideally with one click so that I do not lose my place in the sequence but the drawings include blocks, mtext etc and I really want to maintain their status without exploding anything.

any ideas ? the lisps here seem to partially address my problem.

Moderator, please accept my apologies and move this message if you feel I have 'piggybacked' a thread.

thanks

Moderator, please accept my apologies and move this message if you feel I have 'piggybacked' a thread.

 

thanks

Since you don't say that the lisps in that thread do what you want to, I have moved your question to it's own thread - with a link in the edit-note.

Nick,

Would you want all entities changed to a single colour?

(vlax-for x (vla-get-layers (vla-get-activedocument (vlax-get-acad-object)))
 (vla-put-color x 7))

[color=Red]OR[/color]

(command "_.-layer" "_color" 7 "*" "")

Not what I would suggest, though.

Or perhaps:

(defun c:All2White (/ ss lLst)
 (vl-load-com)

 (vla-StartUndoMark
   (setq *doc
     (cond ((vla-get-ActiveDocument
              (vlax-get-acad-object))))))

 (vlax-for lay (vla-get-Layers *doc)
   
   (and (eq :vlax-true (vla-get-lock lay))
        (setq lLst (cons lay lLst))
        (vla-put-lock lay :vlax-false))
   
   (vla-put-color lay 7))

 (if (ssget "_X" '((-4 . "<NOT") (62 . 256) (-4 . "NOT>")))
   (progn
     (vlax-for obj (setq ss (vla-get-ActiveSelectionSet *doc))
       (vla-put-Color obj acByLayer))
     (vla-delete ss)))

 (vlax-for blk (vla-get-blocks *doc)
   (vlax-for obj blk
     (vla-put-color obj acByLayer)))

 (vl-cmdf "_.attsync" "_n" "*")

 (mapcar
   (function
     (lambda (layer) (vla-put-lock layer :vlax-true))) lLst)

 (vla-EndUndoMark *doc)
 (princ))

But again, not ideal.

EDIT: Updated.

Yeah, mine wasn't nearly complete. I wasn't worrying with object level changes.

Nice work.

However, I hope this isn't the path taken.

Or perhaps:

 

(defun c:All2White (/ ss lLst)
 (vl-load-com)

 (vla-StartUndoMark
   (setq *doc
     (cond ((vla-get-ActiveDocument
              (vlax-get-acad-object))))))

 (vlax-for lay (vla-get-Layers *doc)
   
   (and (eq :vlax-true (vla-get-lock lay))
        (setq lLst (cons lay lLst))
        (vla-put-lock lay :vlax-false))
   
   (vla-put-color lay 7))

 (if (ssget "_X" '((-4 . "<NOT") (62 . 256) (-4 . "NOT>")))
   (progn
     (vlax-for obj (setq ss (vla-get-ActiveSelectionSet *doc))
       (vla-put-Color obj acByLayer))
     (vla-delete ss)))

 (vlax-for blk (vla-get-blocks *doc)
   (vlax-for obj blk
     (vla-put-color obj acByLayer)))

 (vl-cmdf "_.attsync" "_n" "*")

 (mapcar
   (function
     (lambda (layer) (vla-put-lock layer :vlax-true))) lLst)

 (vla-EndUndoMark *doc)
 (princ))

But again, not ideal.

 

EDIT: Updated.

in reply to your first question Lee, I probably need everything changed to a colour, (probably any colour but say 7) it doesn't matter too much as the final intent is to generate a mono pdf that the users can look at.

Alan JT..... 'However, I hope this isn't the path taken'....

what does that mean?

thanks for your efforts to date...

 

Alan JT..... 'However, I hope this isn't the path taken'....

what does that mean?

.

Well, the methods we have suggested thus far in our codes mean changing the colours for all the layers and changing block definitions etc - which is not ideal as it means tampering with the drawing.

in reply to your first question Lee, I probably need everything changed to a colour, (probably any colour but say 7) it doesn't matter too much as the final intent is to generate a mono pdf that the users can look at.

 

Alan JT..... 'However, I hope this isn't the path taken'....

what does that mean?

 

thanks for your efforts to date...

Just that you would be changing quite a bit and ruining a drawing. Hopefully, if you go this route, you will make a copy of the DWG's beforehand.

You can choose any color. Lee and I both went with 7 because it's the default color.

In that case its just the job, As you suggest I will be working on copies anyway. The mono pdf is my sole target. I'm snowed under with work today but as soon as I get a chance to try it I'll let you both know but ,again, thanks for you efforts.

heres hoping

:)