Plotting to Make Life Easier

[Tiger]

Simple Question: Has anyone ever heard of a way to plot multiple dwg-files at once?? It would make my life so much easier....

[RFRUSSO]

Yes. a couple of Icons over from the plot icon there is one that looks like a printer with gold paper in it. That is the Publish icon. Or just type "publish" at the command line. Use the button with a + symbol to add drawings to your list. Make sure that the first drawing has the proper plot settings in the page set up. Once you have all of your drawings listed, select the first one, go to the bottom of the list and while holding the shift key select the last one. Then go back to the top, and in the page set up column click on the drop down menu and select your plot setting. They will all change to match that setting. Look over any check boxes you have. You probably want to make sure that you have selected to plot the layout tabs rather then the model tabs (unless you did your drawings with using paper space). Now you are good to go! Just click publish.

[StykFacE]

Simple Question: Has anyone ever heard of a way to plot multiple dwg-files at once?? It would make my life so much easier....

RFRUSSO, good description. also to elaborate, you can do the same thing with mutliple DWG files as well. just type SSM to bring up the Sheet Set Manager, and this will allow you to import multiple DWG's as "Layout Tabs" and from there you can use the Publish command as well.

[RFRUSSO]

just type SSM to bring up the Sheet Set Manager, and this will allow you to import multiple DWG's as "Layout Tabs" and from there you can use the Publish command as well.

I just learned about sheet sets about 7 months ago. All of the sudden the past 8 years of the daunting task of keeping track of drawings and reference bubbles seemed to go away. Sheet sets (and the project manager) are awesome for plotting and using the fields to connect your references as welll as manage your drawing sets.

[Cymro]

I have not used publish but have used sheetsetmanager after some teething problems.

I could create the layouts I wanted from mutliple drawings. The problem I had was to plot to the plotter I used to the proper page setup.
I overcame this by creating a template (dwt drawing) with all our plotter page setups in paperspace.

in the ssm dialogue
rightclicking the sheetset, select properties and selecting Page setup Overrides and entering the plotter template file here.

then clicking the publish icon and page setup overrides and the page setups I need plotted.

I would like to know how publish works directly.

I hope the above makes sense.

[RFRUSSO]

[quote=Cymro;70391]
I would like to know how publish works directly.
quote]

If you select publish to plotter it will plot to what ever your page set up is currently set to.

[Galingula]

I use the Publish command to create DWFs for a set. Then I can share or plot at will. One key benifit of this is simple batch plotting.

Lets say I took the 34 drawings in the set and made DWFs @ E1 (30x42). Now I can go set the default printer to the 11x17. Set my settings in the windows printer's properties box.

Then off to file manager. Click top DWF, Shift click last DWF.

Right click, print. A while later there is a complete 11x17 set in the printer tray.

Next day some guy calls and needs a full sized set.

Set windows default to the plotter, set preferences. Batch plot the DWFs from the file manager again, but this time I have full sheets.

We only started doing this a few months ago, but I'm lovin' it

[Tiger]

Thanks guys!! Once again you have come to the rescue, I knew I could trust you to make my life easier - now I just have to read up on Sheet Sets and then instruct the rest of the office in their magical benifits

[Galingula]

Can you use sheet sets without a "project"?

[royalchill]

I notice when I view my drawing in the SSM they are collated but when I plot they plot in the reverse order. Then I have to spend time resorting them back in the right order. Is there a way to have them plot in the correct order. Does this need to be change at the plotter. Or is there a setting in autocad to reverse the order of the plots. We are using 2005