Plot a Drawing

Plot the active CAD drawing, or a group of drawings.

CAD / Drawing /

CAD / Drawing / / Batch Plot

CAD / Drawing / Views /

You can plot the following:

• Active Drawing
• Multiple Drawings to different printers or files.
• Multiple Drawings with the same printer and page size, merged into one file or print job.

When printing multiple drawings at once you may be given the following options:

• Select Plot to plot the active drawing using the drawings properties.
• Select / Batch Plot or Views to display the Manage Drawing Views dialog and print multiple drawings with different page layouts or paper sizes to different printers or files.
• If multiple drawings are selected in the Manage Drawing Views dialog, the Sheet Set, then the Drawing Number determines the print order.
• You will be given the option to merge if multiple drawings are selected in the Manage Drawing Views dialog and either:
  • all selected drawings are configured with the same printer and paper size OR
  • the selection includes a set of drawings with the same sheet set that are all configured with the same printer and paper size.
• If you choose to merge drawings:
  • When printing to paper this allows for a double sided print. (To print double sided you must also configure the printer to print double sided.)
  • When printing to PDF this allows for multiple pages in a single file.
  • If the drawings have different orientations, subsequent pages will be rotated to match the orientation of the first drawing that is printed.
• Plot is disabled if the active view is not a drawing view or the selected printer is offline.
• Ensure the layers Plot control is configured to to plot a layers objects.
• Objects are printed using vector data where possible. Pixelisation from a raster plot may occur when zooming in on a PDF when the following is printed:
  • data in a 3D viewport
  • data in a 2D viewport if colour banding is in use.
  • solid fill of complex polygons. (i.e. those with holes or multi-part)
  • symbols or hatches that contain complex polygons
  • text that is backwards, has a character spacing other than 1, or is inside a block with non-uniform scaling.
  • data in a project with transparency when printing using a Print to PDF driver.
• For a background image from an image service to be printed, the image service must return image tiles suitable for the printer resolution. The resolution of your printer will likely be higher than the resolution of your computer screen. You may see the image tiles displayed in your viewport but not in your printed document.
• Select Plot in Black in the drawing properties to plot white objects (FFFFFF) as white and all other object colours as black. Use this for printers that plot in grey scale when 'Black and White' colour is selected in the Printer Properties
• If you select Plot in Black:
  • Colour Inversion is always applied prior to Plot in Black. A white object may be inverted to black due to colour inversion.
  • You can turn off colour inversion for tables, drawings and viewports to prevent some white objects being inverted.
  • Both text background and text may display in black. Ensure your text is white or the background is white.
  • Images and terrain model faces and polygons with the fill colour set to a colour band, will not be printed in black.
  • Objects in raster plots may still appear grey.

• Batch Plot
• Drawing Properties
• Print
• Layers Tool