plot settings

[pigeon5501]

When trying to plot my drawing I originally had the setting at grayscale. I kept getting washed out gray lines. I switched to monochrome and it prints in color and any visual style other than wireframe is all fuzzy. How can I get a sharp plot with dark black lines?

[ReMark]

Try using the Monochrome plot style.

[pigeon5501]

I did switch to monochrome and I got color.

[ReMark]

Perhaps you are getting color because you utilized "True" colors not "Index" colors in your Layer Properties Manager. True colors will override.

[Ski_Me]

Right click your layout tab, then click modify. In the upper right hand corner of the dialog box is a drop down of different plot styles you can use. Select monochrome then click the box just to the right of it. Your now in the plot style table editor. Select the colors you used in model space and choose black. You can edit a bunch of other things like line weight, line style so on and so forth but for now just change the colors to black. Now when you plot your lines will be black. Your layout will display the colors you used in model space. Do a plot preview to see what your drawing will look like. One more thing, I never print to my plotter from autocad. I plot to a pdf then print to my plotter from adobe. Adobe seems to handle the plotter driver better than autocad so you get consistent output from your plotter and very little hassle. Try it see if it works for you.

[pigeon5501]

Thanks Ski_Me, I'll try it tonight.

[Dana W]

Are you checking the box on the page set up dialog for "plot with plotstyles"? If not, the monochrome.ctb (or any other plotstyle) will be ignored.

 

Are you making these changes in the Plot dialog, rather than the page set up dialog, and then not checking the "Apply to Layout" button?

 

The grayscale plotstyle is supposed to print color as different shades of gray.

[RobDraw]

It is highly recommended not to overwrite the default plot settings. Just like any other OOTB settings, save as a unique name.

 

Also, plotting to PDF in order to plot to paper may be needed in special circumstances but is not required to get consistent plots, a working knowledge of plot settings is.