Huge Publish..

I was asked to work some over time tomorow, printing off every .dwg in the system...

Which im estimating to be around 600-800 drawings.

So here is the plan, If i can export the drawings as .pdf or .ptl I can just hand over the files to this "digital services" company downstairs and they can print and roll them all for me...

But here is the problem

Now, if I use publish, and select a plot style that is using the printer "CutePDF" it will start to save all of the files as PDF, buuuuut, it asks me for a "save as" everytime, which is going to be way to time consuming.

Now If I "plot to file" it wont ask me for a "save as" and automaticly saves it as the orignial name.ptl, Buuuuuut, I cannot use publish to "print to file", so i would have to go one file at a time. Again way to time consuming.

Anyone have any ideas how I can do this?

I was asked to work SOME over time tomorow

SOME? you have your work cut out for you.....

im just thinking of how I could do it if my company asked me.....our drawings are scattered throughout the server in different project folders....if you open MY COMPUTER and search the drive/location for ALL dwgs, let it finish searching and you'll have a list of all drawings...select them all (all the ones you want to print), right click and convert to pdf or dwf or somthing....thats the only idea i can think of....i did the search and stopped it when it compiled about 25 dwg's, i selected all and right clicked, converted to pdf and saved it to one big pdf file that contained all 25 drawings....600-800 drawings is alot so i'd break it down into 100 dwgs per pdf

this was just an idea...im tired and may have overlooked a more reasonable answer....

I have gathered all the drawings into one area, but now I need to somehow convert them.

How would acrobat know the plot style and plot area etc...? if you just try to straight convert the drawings to pdf.

I have gathered all the drawings into one area, but now I need to somehow convert them.

 

How would acrobat know the plot style and plot area etc...? if you just try to straight convert the drawings to pdf.

do you have the ability to convert to dwf?

yes, but again, it would be a slow process, because I do not know a way to mass convert dwg to dxf, only one at a time.

yes, but again, it would be a slow process, because I do not know a way to mass convert dwg to dxf, only one at a time.

do a test run on 5 drawings to pdf and see how that works...test it with dwf as well

other than what i mentioned Im not sure what else would be a possibility other than the dreadful process of doing them one by one

I know this is an older thread but I have a good way of how to do this.

Set up your Autopublish settings to publish on closure of the drawing.

this will create and generate a pdf or dwf file to where you have specified. No need to use page set up. just open and close your drawing.

You could also check out different plot to pdf, the one that comes with autocad doesnt ask you to save as for everypage. Also I would set layereval and layernotify to 0 so you dont get any pop ups stopping progress.

AcroPlot Pro would handle all this for you. It can do multiple drawings, and has all the options you could ask for when creating PDF outputs. You could have 1,000 DWG files with 20 Layouts each that all need to be converted, and it would do it all for you, granted taking a long time but it would work. Well worth the money, get your company to approve the $150 for it and all your problems will be solved.

Create a dwg with the Page Setup you wish to print out. Open Publish and add all the dwg's you wish to print. Import the Page Setup you just created and publish them all to one dwf file. Finally, open that dwf file and print to a pdf one.

I have used this on Autocad 2006, and I just tested it successfully with 2010.

All I have to do is create a DWF file and plot to whatever PDF driver I have from Design Review and all of the sheets/pages are created as one PDF. No need to merge and no need to purchase anything special other than a PDF driver.

if you set your PUBLISHCOLLATE variable to 1 you and plot to pdf directly from there it will create one large pdf, if you have it set to 0 it will create multiple pdfs

If I remember correctly, creating a DWF first and then creating your PDF significantly reduces the size of the PDF.

Better yet, if people would just get off this "PDF is the way to go" kick and just down load the FREE design review software, this wouldn't be an issue. I'm trying to get my company to at least DR in house so we don't have to create PDFs as often, but I've met heavy resistance from the old timers that barely know how to turn the darn computers on.