Table borders

[iloilmarketing]

Cheers to that Dana! Thank you for your help, will work on getting my title block template and rev box all uniform.

[iloilmarketing]

Alright Dana, I have set all the segment widths and global widths to 0 on everything. Now all lines are uniform throughout the template.

 

Can you elaborate more on how to change the poly line settings from decimal to millimeters? I checked in Options > User Preferences but not sure where to change that specific setting. My insertion scale settings are both set to inches. When I click on line weight settings units for listing is set to millimeters.

 

I went to the layer properties and changes the line weight for the whole title block layer and changed it to .30 mm and I do not see any changes on the screen with any of my lines. I confirmed I do have display line weight checked within Options > User Preferences > line weight settings. After changing the line weight for the whole layer I even tried going to a plot preview and things look as they do on the screen with thin default lines. Ideas?

[RobDraw]

It seems like you are having trouble with basic AutoCAD plotting. Forgive me if I am wrong, but I have to ask because you posted in the Drawing Management forum and I usually assume a certain amount of knowledge in this forum.

 

Do you know how to set-up and/or use a plot table?

[iloilmarketing]

It was intended for the beginners area sorry.

 

I might be having issues with basic plotting. I guess my question is when you change a line weight does it never show within paper space? If it is supposed to show within paper space then it is something I am doing wrong outside of plotting.

 

No, I am not sure how to set on up or use them.

 

Please move this thread if need be to the beginners area.

[RobDraw]

Okay, you need to learn basic plotting before we can get any further with your title block. There are two different approaches, assigning lineweights "by color" or "by layer/object". Although most people use by color, I would recommend the other method. Your mindset is already there and you are already getting familiar with some of the settings. It's just a matter of properly applying what you are already doing. I'm pretty sure you will pick it up rather quickly.

 

First check with your company to see if they have anything set-up for plotting. If not, get studying because you are going to have to establish one. Look up tutorials for plotting with ".stb". That is the file extension for that type plot style table. I understand how it works but I personally have never used that method in AutoCAD, so I can't even give you any beginner pointers. If you would prefer to set-up lineweights "by color" then look up plotting with ".ctb".

 

HTH

[BIGAL]

Old fashioned answer using ink pens they had colours which represented theirs thickness so if you look at Autocad colours as the 1st 9 they increase in thickness so red would be 0.15 yellow 0.18 increasing up to 1.0 we don't display thickness when working as we know by the colour that the final plot will come out right, we use pline width for fatter lines, which brings me to colour pens 10-250 are left as their by colour and we have these set to 0.25 pens 251+ are left as greys.

 

So my $0.05 using colour is simple when starting. plot top right little button is the CTB edit maybe start with acad.ctb and resave as my colour.ctb

[Dana W]

Alright Dana, I have set all the segment widths and global widths to 0 on everything. Now all lines are uniform throughout the template.

 

Can you elaborate more on how to change the poly line settings from decimal to millimeters? I checked in Options > User Preferences but not sure where to change that specific setting. My insertion scale settings are both set to inches. When I click on line weight settings units for listing is set to millimeters.

 

I went to the layer properties and changes the line weight for the whole title block layer and changed it to .30 mm and I do not see any changes on the screen with any of my lines. I confirmed I do have display line weight checked within Options > User Preferences > line weight settings. After changing the line weight for the whole layer I even tried going to a plot preview and things look as they do on the screen with thin default lines. Ideas?

My advice is for now, do as Rob suggested. Stay with object property (by layer) lineweights that you have been trying to work with for two reasons.

 

One: you are already almost there with it, and setting up a color dependent plotstyle is time consuming.

 

Two: You should learn the system because it still lives on everywhere. You will run across legacy drawings done this way, or even a newer job where it is still done this way.

 

You can also use a *.ctb type plotstyle table to plot object lineweights even though they are designed to be set up to respond to the object color. We'll get to the plot style table, but first tell us what plotstyle (name of the ctb or stb file) you are using to plot this drawing.

 

If you are simply plotting in all black lines, and want to plot object property lineweights, you can use the monochrome.ctb plotstyle table that comes with AutoCad. Even though it is a ctb plotstyle table, it only plots object property lineweights.

 

Ok, let's get even more basic than Rob and Big (Reality TV reference). refer to the attached image that I have drawn rectangles on.

 

In Options > User Preferences tab, there is the Lineweight Settings button (Green). Click that. You can also get there by simply typing LWEIGHT , by clicking the down arrow next to the LWDISPLAY toggle button on the task bar.

 

Then select Units For Listing(Red). This setting is up to you, or your office standards. It has no relation whatsoever to your drawing units or insert units. Its control over lineweights is absolute, and exclusive. You can use either listing unit in both metric and Imperial drawings. I personally use millimeters even though I draw in Imperial units because the increments are in a logical set of numbers. I simply don't think in thousandths of an inch.

 

The Yellow rectangle shows where you can change the default lineweight if what you have for yours doesn't suit you.

 

Above the yellow rectangle there is a checkbox, but it also gets switched by the task bar button so ignore it. They both change the value of the same workspace setting variable, LWDISPLAY or . By the way, with LWDISPLAY ALL lines in modelspace and paperspace, except for the plot preview are displayed only one pixel wide. The hard copy still prints in true line width.

 

In the blue rectangle there is a slide button. It controls how much differentiation between lineweights is displayed in modelspace. Modelspace lineweight display is not reality. All that shows you is that some lines are fatter than others, in a relative sense only. The lineweight display in modelspace does not respond to zooming. The apparent thickness always stays the same number of pixels.

 

In paperspace, with Lineweight display on, lineweights are displayed at their actual width down to the mechanical limits of the display screen. In other words, no line thinner than a pixel width can have its true width displayed. Lineweights do respond while zooming in paperspace, so you may not be able to see any differentiation unless you zoom in far enough for them to be wider than one pixel.

 

In the plot preview, lineweights will display at the thickness they will be plotted, just like in paperspace and the differential will not be visible if zoomed out far enough because again, a pixel width is the bottom line.

 

On the paper, lineweights result in exactly the line width you specify. Well, at least down to about 0.002 mm or so. An ink droplet is only so small.

Edited March 1, 2015 by Dana W

[iloilmarketing]

Thank you everyone for your continued response to this issue. Rob and Big plus Dana, I will review all of your posts and make the changes as needed. Thanks so much for all of the ideas, sounds like there are more than one way to accomplish what I am trying to do. I will find the best way that works for my company and myself. I will respond back with my progress as soon as I am there.

[iloilmarketing]

I got everything to work as I wanted with your help and just some more tweaking. What I didn't know was that if you set a line weight to .30 mm it really doesn't show any changes on screen or plotted. I bumped up my By Layer settings to .50 mm and set my table borders to the same. I am now seeing the thicker lines and things are starting to look as I like them. I have two really quick questions just for my general knowledge.

 

What is the industry standard for text style? Or is it just personal preference? My template was using the A style, but I changed it to standard. Is there any reason for one or the other or is it just a personal preference in how it looks visually?

 

In title blocks, what should I use as my header for the initials box? I see most title blocks online have a box for the drawer to type in their initials, what should I use as a header for this area? Currently I just have "Initials" but that just doesn't seem right to me.

 

Is there any way that I can have a text box sitting in my title block areas so I do not have to create them each time to enter something? Currently I am having to create a multi-line text box and type things in each time. Was curious if I could just have a box sitting there for me to type in each time I import this title block template? I see that is how the table works, each time I import it I can just double click in the boxes and type away.

 

I just tried to do my usual right click on the layout table > From template and import my title block template. When I did this on a drawing I was working on, none of the line weights came over with it. Any ideas on that? Will I have to change these settings each time I import the template?

 

Thanks again for all your help guys.

Edited March 2, 2015 by iloilmarketing

[Dana W]

Generally, one wants to ask one question at a time, each in a new thread in order to keep confusion at a minimum, I will cover these in a general sense here because they are almost all too complicated to answer in one thread all at once.

 

I got everything to work as I wanted with your help and just some more tweaking. What I didn't know was that if you set a line weight to .30 mm it really doesn't show any changes on screen or plotted. I bumped up my By Layer settings to .50 mm and set my table borders to the same. I am now seeing the thicker lines and things are starting to look as I like them. I have two really quick questions just for my general knowledge.

This depends on the hardware and/or driver and plotstyle table you are using. 0.30 seems a little heavy to be running into the lower limits of the hardware. We'll need more details.

 

What is the industry standard for text style? Or is it just personal preference? My template was using the A style, but I changed it to standard. Is there any reason for one or the other or is it just a personal preference in how it looks visually?

There is no real industry standard except for companies that insist on sticking to ISO or some other standards overlord association recommendations.

 

The only text/dimension/table/multileader styles that comes with AutoCad is the STANDARD, and Annotative ones. They are not really STANDARD anywhere except to AutoCad. The various style editors offer nearly infinite possibilities for you to make your own. Don't modify the STANDARD styles. Save them for a fallback starting place. You have an "A Style". That one may very well be a custom style set up by someone in your company or copied from a drawing from somewhere else. It is not one of AutoCad's canned offerings.

 

In title blocks, what should I use as my header for the initials box? I see most title blocks online have a box for the drawer to type in their initials, what should I use as a header for this area? Currently I just have "Initials" but that just doesn't seem right to me.

In the architectural world there are usually at least two places for initials. DRAWN BY: and CHECKED BY:.

 

Is there any way that I can have a text box sitting in my title block areas so I do not have to create them each time to enter something? Currently I am having to create a multi-line text box and type things in each time. Was curious if I could just have a box sitting there for me to type in each time I import this title block template? I see that is how the table works, each time I import it I can just double click in the boxes and type away.

Yes, make your title block and border line an AutoCad Block, with text that does not change typed in while you are in the block editor. Where the text might be different on each page, you can define a text attribute for it in the block editor. There is even a way to set it up so you don't have to type in the different page numbers. I put in a FIELD that displays the layout tab name where my title block has been inserted, and I name my layout tabs consecutively the desired page number.

 

I just tried to do my usual right click on the layout table > From template and import my title block template. When I did this on a drawing I was working on, none of the line weights came over with it. Any ideas on that? Will I have to change these settings each time I import the template?

Layout table? You seem to be using the term template as two different things. I am not sure about your method here.

 

Thanks again for all your help guys.

I'm sure it's generally appreciated. No problem, any time.

[iloilmarketing]

Ah sorry, typo. My method is to do everything I need to do within model space. Then when I am ready to do my dimensions/labeling in paper space, I right click on the layout 1 tab and click on From Template. There I select the template I have been working on and it imports. I set up my viewport and do my dimensions/labeling as needed, fill out my title block and plot it.

 

When I tried to import after making all the changes we talked about earlier, my line weights did not come over when I imported it.

 

I hope that clears that up a little bit. As clear as mud right?

[Dana W]

I don't know why, but this post did not show up in the "New Posts" search or I would have responded sooner.

 

Did you set up the lineweights as "By Layer" in your template? If so, then it did exactly what it is supposed to do if you put the linework on a layer in the new drawing with the same lineweight property you started out with.

 

The lines are probably taking on the layer properties where you are putting the linework, and the lineweight is not the same.

 

Check which layer is current in the new drawing before you start the Import, and make sure the layer, lineweight. and color are what you want.

 

I may be wrong, but I am pretty sure the only things you can copy or import from another drawing, into a new drawing, that will bring explicit properties with them are blocks. Tables, text styles, and dimension styles are actually block definitions, so they copy most of their definition properties when they go from drawing to drawing, and this includes layers. Blocks will actually bring any layers used within the definition with them, and add them to the new drawing.

 

The whole point of a Template Drawing *.dwt file, is to have a drawing saved that contains all the more or less permanent stuff you will use in any drawing, like title blocks, dimension and text styles, your usual set of layers, and a couple of layout tabs already set up. Then you can simply open that dwt file, and save as "My New Drawing.dwg", and then get to work without importing, or copying anything. I suggest you set one up in an otherwise empty dwg, and do a Save As... My Template.dwt, in the same folder as the dwt files are that came with AutoCad. Then you can start from a Template without all the extra sweat.

[iloilmarketing]

Thank you Dana, that clears that up for me. I will take this and make something that will work for me moving forward. Thanks again for all your help, I should be good on this moving forward.