Publish from List?

[dreno99]

Hey,

I have a folder with over 1000 drawings in it. I want to use Publish to create plots.

Unfortunately, the drawings were created partly in PS and partly in MS as far as the plot setup goes. So I can just select them all. 

My question is, can I prepare a list in Ascii format or something to have Publish select the correct drawings from, and in PS/MS, depending on what I tell it? I looked at a dsd file, and there is four or five lines of info for each file, so it wouldn't be productive to recreate a dsd.

I just thought I got all the drawings in and when I tried to save, AutoCAD crashed. Furthermore, the drawings are not coming in the proper order, and with 1000+ files, it is not realistice to drag and drop them into the correct plotting order. And there is no way to sort that I can see.

Any ideas? Maybe a lisp or a script?

[dmfrazier · Accepted solution]

"...the drawings are not coming in the proper order, and with 1000+ files, it is not realistice to drag and drop them into the correct plotting order. And there is no way to sort that I can see."

I think clicking on the column headers (Sheet Name, Page Setup, etc.) will sort the list (assuming alpha sort suffices).  If you want them sorted some other way, you might have to rename the files and/or layouts.

"I just thought I got all the drawings in and when I tried to save, AutoCAD crashed."

In Publish, when you are adding the files you want to plot, it would probably be best to do them in batches of some sort.  Maybe the MS/PS could act as a natural separator.  When you add the files you can elect to include "Layout" only.  This allows you to see immediately which files have valid, initialized layouts and which do not.  Sort the list of layouts (by clicking the Status column header), remove those that don't, and save the list to a DSD file.  Repeat the process, but this time remove those that do have valid, initialized layouts and save that list to another DSD file.  

[dreno99]

thanks!

I arrived at much the same solution - both for publishing in batches, and determining which are PS and which MS page setups by observing the pagesetup that comes into Publish. I am plotting to seperate sheet pdf's so that I can sort when I combine in Acrobat - my goal is an indexed, categorized (couple of ways) and bookmarked pdf catalog with links to individual drawings (parts).

what I'd really like is to get my hands on the person(s) who created this mess over the last ten years. I have had to go in and purge/audit/set pagesetup/apply CAD standards to every one of the files, among other edits in particular drawings. standards are used for a reason!

thanks again. enjoy your weekend ...

[dmfrazier]

"...standards are used for a reason!"

But, unfortunately, there are so many more reasons NOT to use them!

You're welcome. Enjoy your weekend, too.

[dreno99]

Ha! I figure it took more work to make objects a color other than Bylayer and have them on the wrong layer than it would have been to do it right in the first place. Example of some of those particular cleanups I am finding (but forcing myself to not look too deeply).