A Simple Plot
Okay, so you believe me. You know that you're not going to master AutoCAD plotting in five minutes. That doesn't change the fact that your boss, employee, wife, husband, construction foreman, or 11-year-old daughter wants a quick check plot of your drawing.
Plotting success in 16 steps
Here's the quick, cut-to-the-chase procedure for plotting a simple drawing — a mere 16 steps! This procedure assumes that you plot in model space — that is, that clicking the Model button on the status bar shows you the drawing in a way that you want to plot. (I cover plotting paper space layout tabs in the section “Plotting the Layout of the Land,” later in this chapter.) This procedure doesn't deal with controlling plotted lineweights — see the “Plotting Lineweights and Colors” section, later in this chapter, for those details. It should, however, result in a piece of paper that bears some resemblance to what AutoCAD displays on your computer monitor.
Follow these steps to make a simple, not-to-scale, monochrome (black-and-white) plot of a drawing:
- Open the drawing in AutoCAD.
Click Model (not the MODEL/PAPER button) on the status bar to ensure that you're plotting the model space contents. If you have the Model and Layout tabs displayed, rather than the status-bar buttons, click the Model tab.
I explain model space and paper space in Chapters 4 and 5, and how to plot paper space layouts in the section “Plotting the Layout of the Land,” later in this chapter.
- Zoom to the drawing's current extents; click the Zoom Extents button on the Navigation bar (if necessary, click the tiny down-arrow below the Zoom button and choose Zoom Extents from the menu). Or type Z, press Enter, then type E and press Enter again.
The extents of a drawing consist of a rectangular area just large enough to include all the objects in the drawing.
To display the Plot dialog box, click the Plot button on the Quick Access Toolbar.
The Plot dialog box appears, as shown in Figure 16-2.
AutoCAD automatically appends whatever you're about to plot in the dialog box's title bar. For example, in Figure 16-2 the dialog box title is Plot – Model. If you're plotting a layout and haven't changed the layout name, the title might be Plot – Layout1. If you have changed the layout name, the dialog box title will be Plot – First Floor Plan or whatever you've renamed it to. In this book I call it, simply, the Plot dialog box.- In the Printer/Plotter area, select a device from the Name drop-down list.
- In the Paper Size area, select a paper size that's loaded in your printer or plotter.
Make sure that the paper size is large enough to fit the drawing at the scale at which you want to plot it. For example, if you want to plot a D-size drawing, but you have only a B-size printer, you're out of luck — unless you resort to multiple pieces of paper and lots of tape.
- In the Plot Area area (sponsored by the Department of Redundancy Department), select Extents from the What to Plot drop-down list.
If you set your drawing limits as I demonstrate in Chapter 3, you can select Limits instead to plot the drawing area that you defined. The Window option — that is, plot a window whose corners you pick — is useful when you want to plot just a portion of your drawing.
- In the Plot Offset (Origin Set to Printable Area) area, select the Center the Plot check box.
Alternatively, you can specify offsets of zero or other amounts in order to position the plot at a specific location on the paper.
- In the Plot Scale area, either select the Fit to Paper check box or deselect Fit to Paper and specify a scale (by choosing from the drop-down list or typing into the two text boxes).
For most real plotting, you'll plot to a specific scale, but feel free to select the Fit to Paper check box for now. If you do want to plot to a specific scale, see the “Instead of fit, scale it” section later in this chapter for guidance.
Click the More Options button (at the bottom-right corner of the dialog box, next to the Help button).
The Plot dialog box reveals additional settings, as shown in Figure 16-3.
- In the Plot Style Table (Pen Assignments) area, choose monochrome.ctb or monochrome.stb from the drop-down list.
AutoCAD may ask whether you want to “Assign this plot style table to all layouts?” Answer Yes to make monochrome.ctb (or monochrome.stb) the default plot style table for the paper space layout tabs as well as the Model tab, or answer No to make the change apply only to the current tab.The “Plotting with style” section, later in this chapter, describes plot style tables.
- In the Plot Options area, make sure that the Plot with Plot Styles check box is selected and that the Save Changes to Layout check box is deselected, as shown in Figure 16-3.
Leaving the Save Changes to Layout check box deselected tells AutoCAD to use any plot settings changes that you make only for this plot — AutoCAD will revert to the original plot settings the next time you plot the drawing.
- In the Drawing Orientation area, choose Portrait or Landscape.
After you become confident with plotting, you may want to select this check box so that AutoCAD does save your plotting settings changes as the default. Alternatively, click the Apply to Layout button to make the current plot settings the default for future plotting of this tab (that is, the Model tab) in this drawing.
The icon (the letter A on a sheet) in the lower-right corner may help you decide on the right orientation. If not, the full preview in the next step will tell you for sure.
- Click the Preview button and check to make sure the drawing appears on the paper at the correct orientation and size, as shown in Figure 16-4; then right-click and choose Close Preview Window to return to the Plot dialog box.
- If you found any problems in the preview, adjust the plot settings (for example, Plot Area, Plot Scale, or Drawing Orientation) and repeat the preview until the plot looks right.
- Click OK to create the plot.
When AutoCAD finishes generating and sending the plot, it displays a Plot and Publish Job Complete balloon notification from the status bar. If you decide that you don't want to see these notifications, right-click the Plot/Publish Details Report Available icon near the right end of the status bar and deselect Enable Balloon Notification.
There — 16 steps, as promised. If (for some reason) your plot didn't work, well, I warned you that AutoCAD plotting was complicated and temperamental! Read the rest of this chapter for all the details about the numerous other plotting options that can cause plotting to go awry. If you're in a big hurry, turn directly to the troubleshooting section, “Troubles with Plotting,” later in this chapter.
Preview one, two
One of the keys to efficient plotting is liberal use of AutoCAD's preview feature. (To maintain political balance, I recommend conservative use of some other AutoCAD options elsewhere in the book.)
The postage stamp–sized partial preview in the middle of the Plot dialog box is a quick reality check to make sure your plot fits on the paper and is turned in the right direction. If the plot area at the current scale is too large for the paper, AutoCAD displays thick red warning lines along the side(s) of the sheet where the drawing will be truncated.
Click the Preview button to see a full preview in a separate window. You see exactly how your drawing lays out on the paper and how the various lineweights, colors, and other object plot properties will appear. You can zoom and pan around the preview by using the right-click menu.
Any zooming or panning that you do won't affect what area of the drawing gets plotted — zooming and panning is just a way to get a better look at different areas of the plot preview.
Instead of fit, scale it
In most real plotting situations, you want to plot to a specific scale rather than let AutoCAD choose some oddball scale that just happens to maximize the drawing on the paper. And if you're going to plot the Model tab of a drawing to scale, you need to know its drawing scale factor. Chapter 4 describes setup concepts, and Chapter 13 provides some tips for determining the scale factor of a drawing that someone else created.
If your drawing was created at a standard scale, such as 1:50 or 1/4″ = 1′–0″, then you simply choose the scale from the handy Scale drop-down list in the Plot dialog box. If your scale isn't in the list, type the ratio between plotted distance and AutoCAD drawing distance into the two text boxes below the Scale drop-down list, as shown in Figure 16-5. Usually the easiest way to express the ratio is to type 1 in the upper box and the drawing scale factor in the lower box. (See Chapter 4 for more information.)
Your CAD manager may have edited the Scale drop-down list to add uncommon scales or remove scales that your company never uses. If you're designing espresso machines in Milano, for example, you'll probably never need to plot your drawings at 1/128″ = 1′–0″.
Figure 16-5: Lots of ways to scale.
Creating half-size plots for some purposes is common in some industries. To plot model space half-size, double the drawing scale factor. For example, a 1/8″ = 1′–0″ drawing has a drawing scale factor of 96, which is equivalent to a plot scale of 1 = 96. To make a half-size model-space plot of it, specify a plot scale of 1 = 192 (or choose 1/16″ = 1′–0″ from the Scale drop-down list).
Even if you work with drawings that are created to be plotted at a specific scale, plotting with a Fit to Paper scale may be the most efficient way to make a reduced-size check plot. For example, drafters in your office might create drawings that get plotted on D-size sheets (24 × 36 inches), whereas you have access to a laser printer with a B-size (11 × 17 inches) paper tray. By plotting the D-size drawings scaled to fit on B-size paper, you end up with check plots that are slightly smaller than half size. You won't be able to measure distances on the check plots with a scale, but you can give them a visual check for overall correctness.