Store data in file about plotted drawings, is that possible?

Hello again,

For some reason I want to keep track of the number of plotted drawings, i.e. keep track of how much m2 paper is used (and spilled) and all that kind of info.

Basically the plot logs (plot.log) are a good base, but there is too little info in there.

The "plot and publish details" wich can be viewed after the notification balloon pops up is the info what I would like to get.

As far as I know this info cannot be extracted or passed to an external file...

Any of you have an idea where I might look?

All help is appreciated!

I've seen third party software that will track paper usage but I'm guessing you don't want to spend any money.

I've seen third party software that will track paper usage but I'm guessing you don't want to spend any money.

Good guessing Mark!

But in the meantime I read a lot about the plot stamp and the options in there.

All is possible except the number of copies. That seems to be the hard part.

Did you find the answer in the end MarcoW? I'm in the same boat and would like to find a way of keeping a log of the drawings that our CAD department prints. Ive seen various articles about the plot.log and that it can be exported into Excel and then manipulated so it can be read easily. Though I'm stuggerling to implement this. Did you have any luck?

Did you find the answer in the end MarcoW? I'm in the same boat and would like to find a way of keeping a log of the drawings that our CAD department prints. Ive seen various articles about the plot.log and that it can be exported into Excel and then manipulated so it can be read easily. Though I'm stuggerling to implement this. Did you have any luck?

No unfortunately there seems to be no option to retrieve the amount of plotted pages. Yes, the plot itself can be "registered" but not how many sheets come out of the plotter.

So I gave up.... until someone else proves me wrong :-)

That's a shame. If I do find the answer I will post back up on this thread to let you know. Were you able to import the plot file into Excel or Access so that it's easily read?

Hello again,

 

 

The "plot and publish details" wich can be viewed after the notification balloon pops up is the info what I would like to get.

As far as I know this info cannot be extracted or passed to an external file...

 

Any of you have an idea where I might look?

All help is appreciated!

Type in "viewplotdetails" on the command line. It will pop up a dialog box that shows plotted jobs and a button at the top that says "copy to clipboard". You can then paste that info into a spreadsheet or text editor.

I should add that the information is only available during the current session. If you close AutoCAD for some reason, then reopen it, the plot info is gone. Until then you can see every job plotted in that session.

Maybe "reconfigure" the "plot" command so that it runs plot as normal but after it then runs the viewplotdetails you should be able to grab the details and send them to a excell adding on etc every time a plot is done or maybe append to a TXT file.

something like plot = plot viewplotdetails (load writeplotoexcel.lsp)