Batch Plotting Drawings Without Having to Open Every Drawing

I often have a set of 30+ CAD drawings that I need to print. These are drawings that were sent from a contractor and were not created from within. When I try to batch plot the drawings, it defaults to a printer that does not exist anymore.

If I go to page setup and create a new page setup with the printer and plot style I want, it only associates this with the drawing that I have open. In the batch plot window, I can select this page setup for the drawing I opened but not for the rest.

I can go to Options > Plot and Publish and change the default output device, but this only applies to new drawings.

Since the default printer (that no longer exists) manages to be associated with every drawing I open, I'm assuming that there's a setting somewhere that can be changed to link every unfamiliar drawing to the current printer.

Is this possible?

Thanks

Using publisher, you can assign any page setup to all of the drawings in the list by selecting all of the drawings at the same time and selecting the appropriate setup. It can be in the first file or you can import it from any other file.

Keep in mind that the Page Setup has to be present in the actual drawing to be used. With the above method you will still have to apply it to add it to every drawing (you can import from one to another), but you wil not have to apply it to each layout individually.

Yes, that appears to be the issue. I can apply it in the publish window so every drawing shows the correct page setup in that column, but only the first drawing will print. The rest will show "missing plot style".

Mike, that is not the case. I import page setups on a regular basis and apply it to all the sheets in the set at the same time, not individually. Select all the sheets using windows shift select.

Vincent, can you post the error report?

I am using Publisher to plot to pdfs when I do this my hatching layer is covering my other lines. I have used draw order and 'LDORDER' to manage my layers. Everything works great when I do a regular plot and when I publish strait to a printer. the problem only happens when I use publisher to pdf. Does anyone have a suggestion of what is going on?

In the "Publish Option", check the "Lines Merge" option. That might work.

You could use one of the plot lisp's that have been posted these are printer independant as you supply the details, using a script you could plot multiple dwgs in one go.

We have found that consultants dwg's are slightly different than our setup so using a plot window customised to fit the other title block works well.