How do I change complete imported drawing line colors all at once?

[Nigel]

Hi, I have imported a plan and the lines are in yellow and pink and text in blue. I want all of the colors to be in black, How do I achieve this?

Thanks

Nigel

[mrbucket]

Black? Yikes. Is your model space back-ground black as well?

 

If you have a specific layer that is already black, just pick box the whole drawing and place on layer.

[Tankman]

Reminds me of the DOS days when a PC's background color could be changed to white and the print in white. The old joke, Polar bear in a snow storm."

 

Why not just cross the view, highlighting all, change color to whatever?

 

If the drawing isn't too busy, you could then change item colors item by item.

 

Seeing in colors doesn't affect printing, just print in monochrome.ctb.

Colors don't print too well; i.e.: yellow. I'm thinking, "This is Nigel's problem."

 

Welcome to the forums Nigel! Where are you posting from?

[Lee Mac]

In LISP:

 

(defun c:allblack (/ i ss ent)
 (vl-load-com)
 (if (setq i -1 ss (ssget "_X"))
   (while (setq ent (ssname ss (setq i (1+ i))))
     (vl-catch-all-apply 'vla-put-color
       (list (vlax-ename->vla-object ent) acWhite))))
 (princ))

[Nigel]

I will try these things and let you know what happens. The backround is white by the way. And I am from Monticello, Minnesota.

Thanks

[Lee Mac]

I will try these things and let you know what happens. The backround is white by the way. And I am from Monticello, Minnesota.

Thanks

 

Welcome to the forum Nigel, hope you like it here

[Cad64]

What do you mean by import? What format was the drawing and what program created it? If it was an Autocad .dwg drawing, then you didn't "Import" it. Did you Insert it as an Xref or a Block or did you Copy and Paste?

 

If you inserted it as an Xref, just open your Layer Manager, select all layers from the plan xref and then change the colors to whatever you want.

 

If you inserted it as a Block or if you Copied and Pasted, then it's more difficult because all the inserted plan layers won't be contained in their own group in the layer manager. They will be mixed in with all the other layers of your drawing. So you might want to Delete and Purge the block, or Undo until you get rid of the Pasted drawing. Then make the color changes in a copy of your original plan and insert it again.

[eldon]

If you open this drawing before you Insert/X-ref or whatever, you can turn all colours to black by typing on the command line.

 

-la (return)

c (return)

w (return)

* (return) (return)

 

I bet that would be quicker than loading a lisp programme.

 

With Lee Mac's help, everyone will be forgetting the easy command line way of doing things. (No criticism intended of Lee Mac's magic lisp routines)

[Lee Mac]

With Lee Mac's help, everyone will be forgetting the easy command line way of doing things. (No criticism intended of Lee Mac's magic lisp routines)

 

No criticism taken dude - I realise this could be done with a short command sequence, but I couldn't resist a quick LISP

[alanjt]

No criticism taken dude - I realise this could be done with a short command sequence, but I couldn't resist a quick LISP

What you posted will change the color on an object level. eldon's will change the layer color.

[Tankman]

No criticism taken dude - I realise this could be done with a short command sequence, but I couldn't resist a quick LISP.

 

Lee Mac are you telling us something all forum members already know?

[eldon]

eldon's will change the layer color.

 

If you want a quick keyboard sequence to change all entities' colour to black:

 

-ch (return)

all (return)

(return)

p (return)

c (return)

w (return) (return)

[alanjt]

If you want a quick keyboard sequence to change all entities' colour to black:

 

-ch (return)

all (return)

(return)

p (return)

c (return)

w (return) (return)

I'm more of a Change user, but you can also Ctrl+A, then choose the desired color from the Color control pulldown.

[Nigel]

O.K., I tried the highlight the objects with the cross hair and then select a color and worked perfect. Will this now print in Black and white? I am very new at this program. Also, how do I save it to bring in to kinkos or something and print it to full scale? Thank yo for all of your help!!!

Thanks

Nigel

[alanjt]

O.K., I tried the highlight the objects with the cross hair and then select a color and worked perfect. Will this now print in Black and white? I am very new at this program. Also, how do I save it to bring in to kinkos or something and print it to full scale? Thank yo for all of your help!!!

Thanks

Nigel

If you just wanted this for b/w plotting, just create a MONO.ctb file.

[Nigel]

What is a MONO.ctb file? Can I import a drawing and turn it into that?

[Cad64]

It's a plot style: http://www.ellenfinkelstein.com/AutoCAD_tips_plotstyle_colordependent.html

[Lee Mac]

Nigel,

 

The colours as shown on screen are not necessarily how it will print... for example if you have a black drawing background.. the page will not print completely black...

 

The colours onscreen are more of a drawing aid to help you identify various parts of a drawing.

 

The print can be set to print the colours as shown on screen, but it is much more conventional to use a CTB file that assigns a linewidth/colour to each colour shown on screen... hence maybe green is printed to a lineweight of 0.18mm.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Lee

[Nigel]

OK, so what I want to do is import an imageinto autocad that is a DXF image of a wing. The wing comes in with the colors yellow, blue, pink, and so on. I want to make all the line colors black. The backround is already white, So then how do I get it to print in black and white?

[Lee Mac]

Go to print, and, where it says "Plot Style Table", set it to monochrome.ctb, which prints every colour in black, using the object lineweight etc.

 

You can click the icon next to the drop-down to see the settings, and also to create your own ctb.