how to make table border outline be thicker with .ctb plotting?

[JamesMaeding]

So you can modify the lineweights of table grid lines easily, but what that does is essentially hardcode the lineweight to the lines.

But you cannot plot the lineweights of individual lines if using color based plotting (.ctb).

If you uncheck the "plot with plot styles" box in plot dialog, the lineweights do show, but now the colors are all set to WYSIWYG.

Maybe Autodesk assumed we all plot with styles (.stb), because I don't see how to make this work with .ctb.

You cannot make items within a table be on another layer, so I cannot set the later to a think lineweight.

Any ideas how to get the borders to plot with lineweight respected?

[pendean]

Are you using the autocad TABLE object, or is this an Excel linked table?
Your AutoCAD version is?

CTB works with COLOR, not "lineweight': are you changing the wrong thing in PROPERTIES for the cells in question?

[JamesMaeding]

its 2014 autocad, normal table, not excel or ole object.

I guess I never noticed that hardcolded lineweights do not plot with ctb's.

I set lineweights to layers all the time in exhibits, but not hardcode.

As a workaround, I will be using color to make the borders thicker.

I wish Autodesk would use a wide pline for thinkness, not lineweight or color because those depend on your color table and lineweights available.

What if I wanted a border that was 1/2" thick, for some exhibit? Lineweights only go to 2.11 mm on my machine...

[scot-65]

I'm not sure what it is you are having trouble with...?

Border is neutral line weight.

Grid is -2 and -1 line weight.

Non-TTF text has a -1 line weight (bylayer).

Two cells are showing a +1 line weight.

And best of all, this is a block drawn on layer 0 and inserted into a layer that has "Default" lineweight with color as -1.

Plotted using a CTB pen table to PDF, then screen capture so it can be posted here.

[JamesMaeding]

now I'm really lost, what is -1 and -2 lineweight?

How does your reply relate to my issue of lineweights not plotting with ctb's?

[pendean]

LWEIGHT or CTB, never both at the same time: you already know this fact.
So which is it now? You seem to be going in circles to me, muddling up terms and issues.
Any chance you can post your DWG and CTB? We all use CTBs as much as STBs as well as LWEIGHT but never all jumbled together.

[JamesMaeding]

no, you can plot lineweight if you set the layer to a lineweight. It overrides the color translation.

It only works for layer though, not per entity, and a table is one big pie so it hardcodes values.

If you read my posts Dean, there is no jumbling going on. I did mention at first I had not realized you could not plot hardcoded lineweights with ctb.

That did not change the issue, and the issue is very clear.

Autodesk does not give layer control within a table, so you are stuck to using a variety of what are hardcoded values to plot how you want.

I had found this a bit hard to believe at first, but I guess anyone who needed some extreme thickness could tweak their pen table to accomodate that rare exhibit.

I still think a wide pline options should have been in the tool.

Now, someone mentioned -1 and -2 lineweights, that must be related to excel tables or other, I have yet to find what they meant.

I do agree this web interface jumbles threads, and leads to friction between people that have specific questions and all the side posts get thrown inline.

How the geniouses that write autocad features let this DG interface get to where it is is unbeliveable. It smells like they are afraid of the business people that allocate resources, and the business people don't have a clue and its all BIM from now on until they find another marketing term. So let the jumbling go on.

[doni49]

Your CTB file can tell acad to plot using the object's lineweight.  AS LONG AS the color of the object says it can.

In the first example, color 48 says acad will use the object color and object's lineweight -- then if the object's lineweight is set to BYLAYER, it will plot based on the layer's lineweight.

BUT if the color is set to a specific lineweight, game over.  It will plot using that weight.  In the second image, you'll see that color GREEN is hard coded to a specific weight.

[doni49]

I hit send too soon.

So what color is the border?  If it's magenta (as it is here), then check the MAGENTA setting in your ctb file.  You can also change the color to something that will allow the ctb to give lineweight control to the object.

[JamesMaeding]

oh, I see something I had not thought about.

Colors 1 to 9 in most ctb's are the thinnest through thickest black lines, so do have lineweights assigned.

Our ctb has lineweights as by object, for all above 9, in our "Color.ctb" pen table.

So that explains why I had thought it only worked bylayer, which is indeed wrong.

I was testing if hardcoded lineweight worked, using the colors 1 to 9, then testing if layer lineweight worked on colors above that, including true color.

Since lineweights will not work with colors 1 to 9 (our black colors), I checked to see how truecolor behaves, as it is not on a ctb.

As expected, they do work with lineweights.

So to get a really thick black line, you could set color to truecolor black, and use a lineweight.

Problem is that truecolor black dissapears on a black background.

So moral of the story is, colors 1 to 9 are no-go for lineweights, all others should work if your pen table is set to object lineweight.

Again, makes it difficult to make really thick table borders if you are not willing to tweak a companies standard pen tables widths.

good comments Don, wish every expert Elite had replies like yours 🙂 (kidding Dean, its a joke....)

[JamesMaeding]

Don: "So what color is the border?"

I ended up using color 5, but could have gone to 9 as that is our thickest black line.

[doni49]

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@Anonymous wrote:

good comments Don, wish every expert Elite had replies like yours 🙂 (kidding Dean, its a joke....)

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I'm glad you added that last part.  Dean is one of the most well respected members of the EE group.  In fact if one day down the road, I have anywhere near his level of respect in that community, I'll get up and do the "happy dance".  🙂

[JamesMaeding]

yah, and we lost a lot of partcipation when NNTP went away.

I probably check messages once a week now, used to be every day,in a nice neat treeview of headers in Forte Agent.

I will never stop pushing on that with Adesk, as it is a win-win, and web interface is a lose-lose.