A tutorial to get the best output from AutoCAD
AutoCAD can print. And AutoCAD can plot. Is there a difference? Nowadays, there isn’t; the two terms are used interchangeably. AutoCAD makes it easy because you can select either Print or Plot by accessing the same command.
Plotting a drawing is like printing documents from other applications. Set the destination, select what you are printing and adjust the output parameters. Click Print and you’re done.
The Basics
The destination can be either digital or physical. As in, are you creating a file or printing it on paper? The Printer/Plotter command lists all system printers and PC3 devices that are found by different icons.
System printers are those configured and recognized in your system’s operating system. If you can print to it in Microsoft Word or from your email, you can print to it in AutoCAD. By default, system printers use the operating system’s settings.
A PC3 file is a plotter configuration set for AutoCAD. There are many included PC3s for generating PDFs, DWFs and images from your drawings.
Optionally, you can select Properties to open the Plotter Configuration Editor. This allows you to change the plotter configuration, ports, device and media options. With PDF devices, use the PDF Options to configure the output PDF file for your specific purpose.
Now, pick the appropriate paper size. The available paper sizes are dependent on the selected device.
Because the paper sizes are dependent on the selected device, you may get a warning when you switch devices. This warns you that the previous paper size is not available on the current selected device.
Once you’ve selected the device and paper size, you can set what you are plotting.
The What to Plot is one of six options.
- Display: plots the current view as you see it
- Extents: plots all visible objects of the current space
- View: plots a selected view, one previously saved with the View command
- Layouts (Paper Space only): plots everything visible within the layout printable area
- Limits (Model Space only): plots the drawing area defined by the set limits
Use the Plot Offset to offset the plot area relative to the lower-left corner of the printable area (i.e., the edge of the paper). The selected device defines the printable area and the What to Plot setting.
Enable Center the Plot for AutoCAD to calculate the X and Y offset values to auto-center the plot in the printable area.
Pro Tip: At any time, you can select Preview to review the plot with the current settings.
The Plot Scale manages the relative size of the drawing units to the plotted units. It is the ratio between the size of the drawing objects and their size when they are printed. It helps to make sure your drawing fits nicely on the paper you will be printing on.
You can select a standard scale from the list or use Custom to define a user scale. Define the custom scale by specifying the inches (or millimeters) that are equal to the number of drawing units.
Use Fit to Paper to let AutoCAD calculate the scale to fit the drawing within the selected paper size.
Pro Tip: When plotting from model space, I typically enable Fit to Paper because it calculates the optimal scale. I then uncheck the option and select the closest standard scale from the list. This takes the guesswork out of finding the best scale.
Enable Lineweight Scale when you want to scale the line weights in proportion to the plot scale. This is only available with paper space layouts.
More Options
For more plotting options, expand the dialog. Here, you’ll find both often-used features and some features you may never use.
The Orientation is landscape (the long edge is at the top of the page) or portrait (the short edge is at the top of the page). Plotting a drawing upside down might seem weird at first, but there are situations where you might need to use this, like when you are printing on the back of transparent material.
Plot Styles control how objects plot. Styles are useful for creating consistency. They can override object properties with desired line weights, line types and appearances (colors). Plot styles also add flexibility by allowing you to print your drawings in different configurations—for example, using the monochrome plot style to print a drawing in all black, even if the drawing has colors. You can then switch to a style to print the drawing in a color with heavier line weights.
Pro Tip: Use Apply to Layout to save the current settings to the layout without needing to plot the drawing. It is useful to save the settings, return to the drawing to make changes and not have to start the plot configuration over.
Quick hits:
- Plot object line weights: enables you to plot object/layer line weights
- Plot paper space last: reverses the print order by plotting model space objects first
- Plot stamp on: turns on the plot stamp
- Save changes to layout: when enabled, plots the drawing and saves the plot settings to the active layout; otherwise, you will need to use Apply to Layout before plotting
Page Setup
What are Page Setups?
Think of Page Setups as plotting templates. These preset configurations define how the drawing plots. You can configure all aspects of the plot, including the device, paper size, plot scale and plot style.
What are the advantages of using page setups?
- Efficiency: Instead of setting up the plot each time, you can just load an existing configuration.
- Consistency: Use a common set of setups across multiple drawings that can be used by multiple people.
- Flexibility: Use multiple setups for the different printing requirements.
Note, Model Space page setups are only applicable when you are printing from model space, and Paper Space layout setups are only applicable when you are printing from paper space.
From the Plot Dialog
From the top of the Plot dialog, you can select a Page Setup to load its configuration. This lists the drawing’s existing setups that are applicable to the active layout. Pick Add to create a new page setup that is based on the current plot settings.
Pro Tip: Use the built-in <Previous plot> option to load the last-used plot settings. This is truly based on the last time you plotted, as it does not matter whether you are working from a different drawing or a different session.
Page Setup Manager
To work with page setups, use the Page Setup Manager. From this dialog, you can apply, add and edit existing setups and import setups from other drawings.
The Page Setup Manager lists the drawing’s named page setups as well as every layout. Select a layout or setup to review its details (this is really a summary). Double-click a page setup or layout to apply its plot settings to the active layout (or pick Set Current).
When you select New, AutoCAD prompts you for the name and starting setup of the new page setup.
It then presents the Page Setup dialog. Use this simplified plot dialog to configure the plot settings.
Sharing Page Setups
Typically, you will store common page setups in templates, making the setups available to any new drawing. You can also load page setups via the Design Center and by importing them with the Page Setup Manager.
To summarize, Page Setups streamline and standardize the plotting process. As a bonus, it takes minimal effort to build a set of commonly used setups.
Publish—AutoCAD’s Batch Plot
AutoCAD’s batch plotting feature is called Publish. With this feature, you can plot multiple sheets and multiple drawings at one time.
Pro Tip: Before you start Publish, ensure that all open drawings are saved. This can save you time later in the process.
Getting Started
By default, AutoCAD loads the sheets of all open drawings. If you prefer, you can turn this off by unchecking Automatically load all open drawings.
From the Publish to list, select the set based on whether you will be creating DWF and PDF files or you will be sending the package to the plotters set in the individual sheets page setups.
When publishing to PDF format, you will also select the PDF preset, which configures the PDF output.
From the List of Sheets, you can add, remove and reorder sheets. Use Preview to review the plot before publishing the list.
You can find more options via the right-click menu.
Pro Tip: Publish is embedded in Sheet Sets. This means that you can publish an entire sheet set with one click. To read more about sheet sets, check out this article.
When adding sheets, you can browse and select the drawing(s). Use the dialog options to specify the layouts you want to include, such as Model, Layout, or Model & Layout. Optionally, you can enable the prefix option to append the drawing name to the sheet name in the dialog. This is a nice feature when drawings have sheets with similar names.
With sheets selected, you can change the page setup by clicking the cell and selecting another named page setup.
Select Import to import page setups from another drawing. This page setup then becomes available to any sheet in the list.
Watch the Status column for errors. You want to correct these errors before sending to publish.
The lower left corner displays information about the selected sheet. Use the buttons to toggle between a thumbnail preview and the sheet details.
When you enable Publish in Background, AutoCAD completes the publish with a second process. This may take more time to complete, but it frees you to continue working in AutoCAD while the publish step is processing.
Sheet Lists
You can save the list of sheets as a Sheet List. This is useful when either the same or a similar list of drawings will be plotted multiple times. Sheet Lists can be saved with Drawing Set Description (DSD) extensions.
When you are loading a sheet list, AutoCAD prompts you to replace the existing list or append the new sheets to the current list.
Use the Sheet List drop-down menu to select from the loaded sheet lists.
Publishing Options
When publishing to DWF(x) or PDF, use the Publish Options to configure the output.
With both DWF(x) and PDF, you will set the saved file location and indicate whether you will be creating one multi-sheet file or one file for each sheet. You can configure it so that AutoCAD prompts you for a file name each time or you can use a fixed file name.
With DWF, you can also configure how you want to handle layer and block information. With PDF, you will configure the output quality, the inclusion of hyperlinks and the addition of bookmarks.
Publish
With everything set, you can start the process by selecting Publish.
If you are publishing in the background, you can check the progress from the status bar. Once it is complete, you can review the results from the status bar icon. If you are publishing to PDF or DWF, you can also open the resultant file.
It might seem like it involves a lot of effort initially, but Publish allows you to efficiently plot multiple drawings without having to open each one individually. After you use it a few times, you will find it is not difficult to use. Having predefined page setups makes this process even easier.
