screening an xrefed-in drawing

I want to bring a base drawing (drawing A) into another drawing (drawing B), but have it screened (say, at 35%) so that the information overlaid onto it in drawing B (unscreened) is brighter, and darker, so that it pops out, and that drawing A appears as just a background. I want the lineweights of drawing A (assigned in the CTB file) to remain thick and thin, but just to plot with a screened value. How can that happen? So far, I have just assigned xrefed-in layers a thin lineweight, which might work, but would prefer that the xrefed-in layers retain their thickness but appear shaded. I feel like I did this years ago, but have no idea how to accomplish this. As usual, help is appreciated!

There is a screening option in your CTB settings.

Yes, but for example I normally assign the color yellow (2) to a line that it .02" wide and fully black (no screen). When I xref my first drawing with my normal colors into a SECOND drawing, I want that line to be SHADED and .02" wide. Does that mean I need to create a NEW CTB file for the drawing it is xrefed into? That would also mean I could not use ANY of the colors that I normally use in that second drawing?

What you are saying is correct except that you can just edit the current CTB file. Obviously, if you want the lines to print differently, they will have to be different colors but there are enough colors so that you can get what you are looking for. I would suggest using different colors for the XREF even if you did not want it to print differently just for on screen visualization purposes. This method is used in a lot of offices.

A quick, down and dirty way to accomplish this would be to add a transparency to the XREF and in your plot dialog box check "Plot transparency". This is not recommended, though, as transparency is really meant to be used for on screen visualization.

OK. I am an architect and I a creating the drawings for the structural engineer. He wants my drawing to be screened in the background of his drawing, so that ONLY his info is bold (not screened). What I am going to do is create a NEW CTB file (from mine) for the structural drawings, screening all of my normal layers and creating new layers (with similar colors, names and lineweights) for the new one. This will work. Was just hoping I could just plain easily screen the xref. Thanks for your help!

I think you might be going above and beyond the call of duty. If the structural engineer is a consultant, they should be more than able to adjust your files to suit their needs. I've been working in an engineering consulting firm for 11 years and have never seen files from architects come in pre-set up to our standards. I have spent countless hours cleaning up architectural files so that we can use them as backgrounds. It would be some sort of miracle if they came in ready to go.

Well, yeah, but the structural engineer doesn't do computer drawings, so the client wants me to draw everything. I just have to mark it up so that I am not legally liable for anything on his sheets. As an architect, I have had to do the same to OUR consultants' drawings to use them......so believe me I understand. Now he only issue I have is my drawing overlaid on theirs is very distracting, as the colors are still there, though with their CTB file (I created) they will print screened. I just have to turn my layers off or temporarily change their colors to gray to work on their layers. Thanks for your help!

You could fade the XREF a couple different ways. XDWGFADECTL or LAYLOCKFADECTL and lock the layer. These will not affect how it plots.

You could fade the XREF a couple different ways. XFADECTL or LAYLOCKFADECTL and lock the layer. These will not affect how it plots.

I think they would need XDWGFADECTL for fading an Xref.

You're right, rkent. Edited my response.

Is XDWGFADECTL a command? I have created a new CTB file to print the drawings with, and now they look almost right, except when something on the current drawing is overlapped by the screened xref layers. Then the thing that is overlapped prints screened. In other words, the screened lines take precedence. This is horrible. Exterior walls on the structural drawing - which are structural - need to read solid, even though they also read on my architectural plans. But since my exterior walls are screened, they override the differently-named but identically-placed structural layers and plot screened. So, with the XDWGFADECTL, am I able to just have my xrefed-in drawing screened? Will coinciding lines default to plotting screened? I am not having fun anymore.

I see that xdwgfadectl is a toggle in R2013. So I have a test folder with my two plans in it, converted both to R2013, but now cannot xref the plans into the structural plans. I get "invalid". This is killing me. I purged each, removed all xrefs from before to start clean. Still cannot bring plan into structural plan.

I see that xdwgfadectl is a toggle in R2013. So I have a test folder with my two plans in it, converted both to R2013, but now cannot xref the plans into the structural plans. I get "invalid". This is killing me. I purged each, removed all xrefs from before to start clean. Still cannot bring plan into structural plan.

Are you now working in 2013? ( I missed seeing you have 2004 as your profile.)

What does the error message say, it must be more than just the word invalid?

If you can open each file in 2013 then obviously you should be able to xref them.

drawings were created in 2004, but I saved them in another subdirectory and then opened each in 2013. I removed all xrefs and purged each so as not to have any pre-existing "knowledge" of 2004 xrefs. When I try to xref the plan into the structural plan, all it says is "invalid" and goes back to the command prompt. I made sure that my computer would default to using 2013 in opening cad drawings, so as to avoid it trying to xref an 2004 drawing into a 2013 drawing. No luck. I just want to see if the xdwgfadectl command works any better than what I had in 2004. In 2004, the xrefed-in screened lines blotted out (overrode) non-screened lines that coincided with them (say, structural walls that show up in my plans, but need to be solid, not screened, in the structural drawing. If this problem still exists with xdwgfadectl, then I don't need to pursue using 2013 for this....my head hurts

Xdwgfadectl Is for display only, I would xref the file, open a view port, start the layer manager. grab all xref layers then look to the right and change the color to color 9, any color will do. Now you will edit the ctb so color 9 has a gray scale of 50, or what ever works for you. Finally edit the page setup to display plot styles. You can work in the viewport and the gray scale will show, if you work in model space the colors will show.

Thank you......that solves the visual issue on the screen, but it there no way to have two lines that coincide, one shaded, one not, so that the NOT shaded one is what plots? My shaded lines override the non-shaded when plotting, and I need I to be the other way around.....

Now edit your .pc3 file for the plotter you are using, find the graphics option, it will be set to merge or over write, change it to the one it is not set to. Try that.

Are you plotting to PDF or plotter? It sounds like the "Lines Merge" option for plotting to PDF.

I SO thought you had it. I once dealt with the Lines Merge vs. Lines Overwrite options, and was so excited that this was solved. Except it didn't work. I'll keep fiddling with that....I KNOW it has to be the answer......arrrrgh.

AND, I found that having dithering ON in the CTB file overwrites the MERGE option, and my dithering was on. So I turned dithering off, made sure the MERGE was on (even though I save it on, it often goes back to OVERWRITE), and.......come on! NO LUCK. This should not be that difficult.