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Using a .stb rather than a .ctb.. but having printing problems

11 REPLIES 11
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Message 1 of 12
mnyrac
1462 Views, 11 Replies

Using a .stb rather than a .ctb.. but having printing problems

I'm back again.  I had posted a while ago about pulling my company to a standard plot table and I have decided that, yes, using named plot styles instead of color dependent plot styles is definitely the way to go. 

 

So I've begun creating my drawing template with all my layers and each layer has a plot style attached to it.  The line weight is set to default.  I am doing a test plot with a drawing that I have to see what it looks like.  The pen table is set to my .stb table but when I go to preview, my linework doesn't show up. 

 

I have checked my setting for my layers to make sure that they are set to plot. 

 

In my plot dialog box, if I uncheck "Plot with plot styles" I can see the linework but it doesn't plot right (plots in color).  Unchecking "plot object lineweights" doesn't do anything either. 

 

What am I missing?  Thanks all.

Caryn

11 REPLIES 11
Message 2 of 12
mnyrac
in reply to: mnyrac

Ok I did find one issue with my .stb.  I needed to set my style to have "object lineweight" and then set my lineweight within my layer.  But it's still doing the same thing when I try to plot.

Caryn

Message 3 of 12
sjg
Advisor
in reply to: mnyrac

Is your stb plot style set to plot in black
Steve Goessling
Land Consultants
Civil3D 2015
Windows 7, 64 bit
Intel i7 2600 @ 3.40Ghz
16 GB RAM
Nvidia Quadro 600
Message 4 of 12
Neilw_05
in reply to: mnyrac

We can't troubleshoot our drawing without the .stb.

Neil Wilson (a.k.a. neilw)
AEC Collection/C3D 2024, LDT 2004, Power Civil v8i SS1
WIN 10 64 PRO

http://www.sec-landmgt.com
Message 5 of 12
mnyrac
in reply to: Neilw_05

Yes, it is set to plot in black. 

 

I tried to upload the .stb but autodesk said it was an invalid extension.  I will try again.

Message 6 of 12
Neilw_05
in reply to: mnyrac

What I see is your plot style tables only have 3 styles defined: Normal, Existing and Proposed. However the layers in the dwg are mapped to styles named Thick 50, Medium 50, Fine 50 etc. Since you have a mismatch between the layers and the tables Autocad cannot apply the styles to your output. You will need to import all the styles from the drawing into your style tables to eliminate the mismatches OR remap the layers to any of the 3 styles on your tables.

 

By the way I'll offer a suggestion that might save you some headaches. You will notice that all named plot style tables have a style called Normal. Since Autocad uses the Normal style as a default when new layers are created, this ensures there will always be a match in any style table. The problem you will have is the Normal plot style cannot be edited so it always plots the layer using it's color, lineweight and linestyle settings. So if you create a style table that is intended to plot everything in black and you have layers mapped to the Normal style, they will plot in color.

 

Likely you will want to define a generic style that will use all default settings except the color. That way you can control the lineweight and style using the layer settings in the dwg and let the style table control the plotted color. So I suggest defining a generic style (I call mine "Standard") in all your tables and map all the default "Normal" layers in your drawings to the "Standard" style. That way you will always have full control over how they plot using your tables.

Neil Wilson (a.k.a. neilw)
AEC Collection/C3D 2024, LDT 2004, Power Civil v8i SS1
WIN 10 64 PRO

http://www.sec-landmgt.com
Message 7 of 12
mnyrac
in reply to: Neilw_05

I was in the process of re-doing my layers with the Existing, Proposed, and Normal styles when I sent the example to you.  I had originally had multiple styles for each lineweight, such as Thick 50, etc.  

 

Sorry for the confusion.  I'm not currently at the office and I sent what I had here at home.  

 

So if Normal is default, it's kinda pointless that you can't modify it at all.  

 

What I had thought was that I could create a named plot style with multiple lineweights, then assign the correct style to the layer.  Which is what you saw in the drawing.  

 

Then after reading a bit more, I see that what people suggested is setting the layer to the appropriate lineweight and just using the style for black, color and gray.  Is this the way to go?  Or can I do it the way I originally planned?

 

Thanks.

Caryn

Message 8 of 12
Neilw_05
in reply to: mnyrac

There are pros and cons to every method of course. One advantage to having lineweights defined in a style is consistency. For example if you usually want all existing contours to plot with a certain lineweight you could define a style for existing contours and assign it a lineweight. If you leave the lineweight setting out of your styles you end up with a simpler style table but it puts more of the burden on the users to set up their drawings to get the right look.

 

One thing you'll want to consider when setting up styles is how their names will relate to your tables. Every style will have to be included in all your tables so as to ensure a match when the tables need to be switched for different output scenarios. For example if you were to create a style named Black in a color style table to force specific colored layers to plot as black, you will have to include that style in your grayscale and black and white style tables. Will the Black style plot as black in the grayscale table or will it be gray? So the naming convention you use could become counter-intuitive in certain scenarios.

 

With regard to your original post about your drawings not plotting correctly when plot styles are applied, the behavior suggests to me that Autocad is not finding a match between the drawing and the style tables. I think you'll find things work properly when you get that resovled.

Neil Wilson (a.k.a. neilw)
AEC Collection/C3D 2024, LDT 2004, Power Civil v8i SS1
WIN 10 64 PRO

http://www.sec-landmgt.com
Message 9 of 12
mnyrac
in reply to: Neilw_05

I will work on it a bit and let you know if I still have issues.  Thanks!

Caryn

Message 10 of 12
mnyrac
in reply to: mnyrac

I realized that my printing problem was that my screening was set to 0 for all the plot styles.  I went back to the original plot styles I had set up (Fine, Medium, Thick, etc) because I liked that better than setting lineweight in the layer.  Thanks!

Caryn

Message 11 of 12
judah1st
in reply to: sjg

How do I set stb plot style set to plot in black ? 

Message 12 of 12
mnyrac
in reply to: judah1st

What I have on my current setup is a .stb plot table with the style of Black and the settings are in the attached photo.  Plot style.PNG

 

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