Polylines with global widths plot thinner than those with no width

[samtoby]

Hoping someone can help out. I have a drawing with polylines that have a global width of .2 which are plotting thinner than those with a width of 0. If I uncheck "plot object lineweights" it seems to plot correctly but the lines with 0 width plot so light (or grey) that you can't see the drawing well.

[MSasu]

Please don't confuse the width property of polylines with lineweight feature that may be set to all entities (directly or by CTB style). Please check what is set under those fields for the trouble-maker entities in Properties. Are you using a CTB style for plot?

Or attach here a copy of your drawing (just few of the trouble-maker entities) and someone will have a look.

[samtoby]

I attached a copy of the file. What should I look for in properties that might cause this problem

Global width issue.dwg

[RobDraw]

It is not a problem. Polylines with 0 width will plot according to the plot style. Having an assigned width overrides that value. You will need to assign a value greater than 0 and less than .2 in order to get them to plot as desired.

[samtoby]

That would work if my whole drawing was polylines but it's not. I feel like it's just a setting that I don't have correct somewhere in the drawing. What I see on the screen does not plot the same whether it's a pdf or print.

[RobDraw]

Okay, I think I incorrectly assumed that you knew about printing and creating plot styles. Could you get your file to print correctly if you did not have any polylines in it? If not, your question should be about creating plot styles. Polylines with width are used to override settings in your plot style.

[samtoby]

My frustration has been that what I see on the screen in not what is plotting. I just realized that LWDISPLAY is turned off, when I turn it on I now see exactly as it plots. I am in a viewport at 1/4 scale and my layers are set to a default VP lineweight. If I change the scale, the width of the lines change except those that I gave a global width (exactly what you were saying) so it seems that I need to change the VP lineweight from default to a size that fits with the scale I am working. Would you agree or do you feel it still is a plot style issue.

[RobDraw]

No, what you are seeing is correct. The lineweights should change with scale. Get yourself comfortable with plotstyles before you mess with VP lineweights. That is a new feature that is there for overrides to your plotstyle.

[samtoby]

One last question then if you don't mind. I want all of my baselines to be the same lineweight no matter what scale I am in. (I often have drawings with several different viewports all at different scales and would like the plotted drawing to be consistant). Can I lock a plot style to a specific lineweight independent of the scale?

[RobDraw]

Your starting to get it! With plot styles the assigned lineweight is what is plotted. So an assigned lineweight of X will always plot X wide on paper regardless of the scale of the viewport. That is assuming that you are plotting from paperspace at a scale of 1:1 or have "Scale Lineweights" unchecked.