Line thickness not printing correctly.

[BuntyBunty]

Greetings fellow CAD Monkeys and CAD King Monkeys,

 

I use our company ctb with 3 of the colours set as varying thickness which print at varying thicknesses but appear in the drawing in both PS and MS. This was all working fine but now for some reason when I print all the lines are the same thickness.

 

Does anyone know how I can resolve this and get all lines printing at their ctb weights gain?

 

Many thanks.

[ReMark]

And you already checked the ctb file to verify no one messed with it right?

[BuntyBunty]

Yup, ctb is fine.

[ReMark]

What make/model of a printer/plotter are you using? Can line thicknesses be overridden there?

[BuntyBunty]

Its not the printer as other CAD techs in the office are not affected by this problem. It must be a setting or option on my autocad but I cant seem to find what governs this...

[ReMark]

It's not the printer and it's not the ctb file then that leaves us with the drawing itself. Have you checked Layer Properties Manager > Lineweights?

[BuntyBunty]

I have checked but there doesn't seem to be anything out of the ordinary. Also I have opened another drawing and printed it only to get the same results so it must be a global autocad setting......but which one? hmmmm....

[ReMark]

And you checked the plotter configuration file (PC3)?

[Jacko93]

On your plot settings, have you checked plot with Plot Styles?

[KJB]

Under Plot options: Is "Plot with plot styles" checked?

[KJB]

Beat me to it.

[BuntyBunty]

"Plot with plot styles" is checked...

[ReMark]

I sense we are running out of choices here.

 

So what changed between the last time you were able to plot the drawing correctly and now? It didn't happen by magic.

[BuntyBunty]

Nothing has really changed, i have a feeling it might have something to do with ltscale or msltscale or psltscale and their various settings which I have never really understood. I have only just managed to get lines in MS looking exactly the same in PS....

[Jacko93]

Is your plot style table showing the correct file in the plot dialogue box? Try CONVERTPSTYLES then click ok. if that doesn't work, be sure to undo, or do it again to return the drawing to it's former state.

[ReMark]

LTSCALE does not change lineweight. It changes the linetype scale factor. This is most noticeable in lines that have dots or dashes in them.

 

PSLTSCALE does not change lineweight. It controls linetype scaling of objects displayed in paperspace viewports.

 

MSLTSCALE does not change lineweight. It scales linetypes displayed on the model tab by the annotation scale.

 

LWEIGHT does change lineweight. It sets the current lineweight, lineweight display options, and lineweight units.

 

LWDEFAULT sets the value for the default lineweight. What is LWDEFAULT set to?

[BuntyBunty]

Currently LWDEFAULT is set to 25.

[ReMark]

Currently LWDEFAULT is set to 25.

 

Just for kicks bump that up to 100 and do a test plot of an area with some of the lines that are giving you trouble. What happens?

[BuntyBunty]

Right, I just gave that a go. The lines appeared thicker in MS and PS and in print preview but the print out was just thin lines as per normal. However I have already tried printing out the same drawing on my colleagues laptop and the lines appeared to be the correct thicknesses. Funny?

[ReMark]

Funny? Yes, as in funny... groan.

 

My bet is that you mucked up the plotstyle file.