What do you use to Print large drawing Sets to PDF?

[Anonymous]

What do you use to Print your large Sheetsets ?

Do you use the Publish function within AutoCad ?

Do you use Acroplot or any other 3rd party software ?

I had to print around 80-100 Plan and Profiles Sheets, Sections, Coverpage, Index, Legend, etc...and was wondering what works best !

Thanks,

Scottie Wilson

C3d 2011

[Anonymous]

The most I've ever plotted at once has been about 60 sheets. I use the built in publish to PDF and it works just fine.

[mathewkol]

I've found the sheet set manager works great for me. Publish is great too if you're not using the SSM.

[larryrichards8326]

i use a little program called ACROplot

[atwitsend74]

We use a program called 'docuprinter'

Publish works great if you use viewport control for your layers.  we use layer states, so publish doesn't work (at least not in 09).

[rhdins]

I create a sheet set, and use publish to pdf, or just publish, because I actually set up all my drawings to plot to pdf now anyway, since I rarely need to print plans, I am usually emailing a pdf of them anyway.  And when I need a set printed, I just print the pdf.  Works well for me at least.

[MarySeufert]

We use Bluebeam CAD. Its a great program that creates a tab in all my ACAD versions and MS Office. It can be used to batch PDF your drawings, or create a PDF using your current pagesetup in your active drawing. Also comes with a PDF editor and stapler (to create multi-page PDF from many single ones, without opening them).

~ Mary

[Anonymous]

Great! This is exactly what i wanted to see. Some people here like to use Acroplot because it allows you to place a WORKING COPY stamp over the Revision Area. But, It requires a good amount of setup. I prefer the Publish command. Both seem to make differing quality PDF's.

Keep it coming.

Thanks,

Scottie

[ccoles]

We just use the Adobe PDF print driver that comes with Acrobat 9. It makes individual files, but Acrobat can batch them together in a large set if needed. It handles our print sizes from ANSI to ARCH to Custom.

[MikeEvansUK]

Adobe prints are larger than autocad PDF plots, also they may contain issues or missing data.

I have seen this before but I'm not employed now so can't check. Hope not to be for long.

I always used publish called from sheet set, not plot sheet set but publish dialogue as this called the entire sheet set into the publish dialogue and allowed you to adjust settings.

When printing large sets I have seen issues with background publishing so I used to open a new session (minimised) and run it with background turned off.

[AllenJessup]

I  Publish to CutePDF. It's free. I also use CutePDF Pro for editing. It's not free, but it's cheap.

Allen

[Anonymous]

I use publish through sheet set manager. Using the program Acroplot instead of a printer as a managed page set up works just fine. We have used this to print large sets 80 sheets +.

[tyronebk]

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@Anonymous wrote:
Adobe prints are larger than autocad PDF plots, also they may contain issues or missing data.

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Adobe does not necessarily create larger PDFs. It all depends on the settings you assign. Though using the default settings will usually result in a larger PDF than other solutions.

We currently use Sheet Set Manager and plot to Page Setup Overrides set up for PC3 files for Adobe, Acroplot, and the built in Autodesk PDF creator. Each of the PDF creators has its own advantages and problems (that's why we use all three), but when configured right, will produce very similar results in their quality and size.

[jfalkowski]

I'm curious what program you are using that works with layer states without having to go to each sheet individually to plot.  I'd rather not use viewport layer control because we like to work in model space like the program intended.

Jon

[AllenJessup]

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@jfalkowski wrote:

I'd rather not use viewport layer control because we like to work in model space like the program intended.

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I'd think that if viewport layer control is included in the program that the programmers intended them to be used. What exactly are you referring to?

Can you elaborate on what you what done? Are you looking for a program that will restore layer states based on the layout? There used to be a free one from Dotsoft but it isn't recommended to use past R2006.

What I used to do before the advent of layouts was to write a Lisp file that would turn layers and viewports on or off and attach or detach Xrefs based on the sheet identifier. But none of that is necessary now.

Our present method is to create a plot drawing and xref the basemap and proposed drawings into it. We use the vp layer control, which can be saved in layer states, to control what's shown on each sheet and publish to CutePDF. I have had nearly 100 layouts in one plot drawing. Separate plot drawings can be created for each discipline if the project is very large.

Allen

[mathewkol]

@Jon
Are you saying you do business exclusively in model space with no paper space layouts at all? And there are layers you need to turn on and off with each plot?

[jfalkowski]

I only ask because we need to implement a more efficient way of plotting large drawings sets at my firm.

Currently, we work in model space and save layer states in model space. We don't use viewport overrides unless we have multiple viewports in the same layout which require different layer settings. We then name the layer state the same name as the corresponding layout tab and use a lisp routine (you are prob familiar with the old loswitch.dvb) to trigger the layer state when switching to the layout.  I understand this no longer works since the changeover from VBA to .NET.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it was my understanding that if we use viewport layer management, all layers must be on and thawed in model space, and the layers you want frozen must be then be controlled through the viewport (viewport freeze).  So it will look fine when your in the layout tab, but when you switch back to model, everything is on and thawed, which is just a mess.  We like to get everything in model perfect as far as layer states go depending on the plan (utility, grading, esc, entrance, demo, ect.) - not get it close and then pick and choose layers to viewport freeze through the viewport window that we may have missed.

We have a very complex and complete set of company drafting and layer standards.  All drawing templates are configured and preloaded with all of our standard layers and typical layer states that our users may need.

I am open to suggestions - please enlighten me if there is a better way of doing things without having to "work through the viewport".

Thanks,

Jon

[coopdetat]

I use publish with a page setup override from within my sheet sets.  I don't plot to PDF because of past problems I've had with missing data in the time it takes to generate the plots. The solution I found that eliminates these problems is to use the raster device "TIFF Version 6 (CCITT G4 2D Compression)".  However, since AutoCAD insists that output from raster devices is unitless it is necessary to pair a custom paper size with the sheet size (in pixels: inches x dpi). It is also necessary to post process the TIFF files to fix their dpi to the value AutoCAD was instructed to assign in the first place.

Regardless of what dpi value you assign in the page setup or in the plot dialog AutoCAD will output raster files with no dpi value.  Since AutoCAD does not specify dpi in the file header Adobe will assume that the dpi is 72 dpi for "TIFF Version 6 (CCITT G4 2D Compression)" files and Adobe will not let you change the DPI setting.  This blows the otherwise exact scale they images have.  I use IrfanView to assign the correct dpi and create a multipage PDF from the TIF files. It is quick and easy and the resulting PDF files are much smaller than those created by Adobe or AutoCAD.

The thing I really like about this method is that I can make both half size and full size perfectly scaled drawing sets from the exact same output.  There is no need to plot them again just to get a half size set.  Just double the dpi setting and voila! you have your half size set.  (No need for half-size page setup and en tables either). IrfanView can help outside of AutoCAD with signed drawings as well.  We print our exact scale ANSI-D half-size set (11x17) for the engineer to sign.  Then we scan the signed set at 600 dpi and use IrfanView to batch reset the dpi to 300, voila! Full size photocopies of the signed set for 1/4 the paper cost and much less time spent plotting.

I've plotted over 200 sheets in a sheet set without any problems using using ths method in AutoCAD 2012.

[AllenJessup]

Yes. loswitch.dvb is the Dotsoft program I was referring to.

It sounds like you're creating the layouts in the same drawing that the model is in. That does lead to the layer problems you described. That's why we now create the separate plot drawing to create the layouts in and Xref the other drawings into it. Having Visretain set to 1 allows the layers to be controlled in the Xref drawing. Yes. You will usually need to have most of them on and thawed. But since you don't have to work in ModelSpace it isn't an issue. I found that not only did creating layouts in the model drawing cause the layer problems but it also stressed the drawing too much, causing errors.

The only place you can have trouble is with Civil 3D objects. Since the display of most of them is controlled by the Style. You need them to be displayed in the original drawing to be visible in the Xref.  If that became an issue I'd probably create a new drawing and Dref the object in then Xref that to the plot drawing.

[AllenJessup]

Quite an interesting solution. I've never had the problems you describe with plotting to CutePDF so I've never had to go any further. But what you've come up with is quite innovative. I don't think I'd revise out plotting at this point but it's always nice to see a different way of doing things.

Allen