Electrical 2015, Batch Plot to PDF, Monochrome

[shades234]

Hi All

I recently upgraded from 2013 to 2015 and i'm tyring to get it "set up" just like my 13 version.

I'm noticing now that when i do a batch plot, selecting "publish to pdf" I get greyscale lines for some colors.  I want to print it in monochrome (any line should be black).  I have the page style for the drawings set to our office printer and defaulted to monochrome.ctb

but when i publish, i still get "grey lines"

can someone help?

thanks

[Dag_Henrik]

Hello.

What color are selected for the layer that those lines who comes out as grey are on?

If you select colours for a layer that is not a Index Color, i.e. a True Color, that color is plottet with color even though you have selected monocrome...

[shades234]

it looks like it's just the text, the more i look at a set of drawings. and not all text. so i'm still confused.

[Dag_Henrik]

What color is selected for the layer that the text is on then?

[shades234]

Some are White, some are red.. some are shades of blue/green/ etc.

[mcronin · Accepted solution]

For 2015 they have added another font mapping file. It is acade.fmp. This file maps certain fonts to true type font for publishing to pdf. I have autocad ignore some of the fonts listed by preceeding them with * and now my publish works fine. The file is located in the user appdata folder(C:\Users\"username"\AppData\Roaming\Autodesk\AutoCAD Electrical 2015\R20.0\enu\Support\acade.fmp) I have attached a copy of my file showing the fonts I have omitted.

[Dag_Henrik]

Ah, ok.

Was not aware of that...

But for the future as well shades234, If you chose a True Color for a layer that Color will be plottet even though you set up for monocrome.

You can easy check if a color is of True Color in the layer propeties by looking at the color code. See attachment. 

[shades234]

Thanks
That's what did it for me!

[rhesusminus]

Just wanted to point out that the font mapping is there for a reason.

The PDF will only be  (text) searchable if you've been using true type fonts when creating it. Thats what the font mapping file do, make sure you use true type fonts.

[shades234]

That's fine.  we don't PDF search the drawings for text. so having that option disable will not cause any problems.  the darker text lines are more important for the shop guys to see.

thanks for pointing out what the font mapping function does.  I can see it being helpful in the future, but at this point, it isn't.

[rcsystems]

Hi,

I am having the same issue. 

I have set all of my layers to white, this is how I work anyway. 

I use monochrome.ctb

If I just plot to PDF using (Acde - DWG To PDF.pc3) my drawing prints black but if I publish then everything is light grey.

Please help.

[jxl3678]

We are also having the same problem.

[ranmavol]

About colors, is recommended to use true colors or index colors?
And what is the best option to use, ctb or stb?

The reason is that my final customer needs the as-built drawings in monochrome state

Thanks in advance, Randolf

[Cole64]

Ive just installed ACADE2016 and the same thing is happening. I have run 3 tests all using the same plot setup on Monochrome:

1. Batch plot  = Text is grey

2. Batch plot and comment out TTF's in ACADE.fmp = Text is black

3. Plot single drawing = Text is black

Strange that it only occurs in Batch.

[Icemanau]

2015 and 1026 both have incorporated hyperlinks into the PDF prints.

If you batch plot a project, any ACAD shp fonts get replaced with TTF fonts. This allows the hyperlinks to work on items like the XREF's in the PDF's.

It is the TTF's that are not printing as black but it only affects some of the TTF's.

To fix, you will need to experiment and find a TTF that prints as black instead of grey and either use that TTF in your dwgs or set it in your Font Substitution file.

You can also turn off the text substitution as one of the options in the batch print dialog.

Regards Brad

[mats.strand65]

IF you want to use this new feature to make your drawings searchable, is there any way to use a index color and the text actually being readable on the pdf print? When you use index colors the text is almost invisible.

EDIT: Just see that this was replied to

Isn't there are known setting to change? I can't find a setting in the batch tool to turn off the text substitution?

This is the acade.fmp file where I at the moment have disable this:.

Most of my info are given as text, so I assume i should change the TXT_____.TTF to something else, any suggsestions?

cibt;CITYB___.TTF
cobt;COUNB___.TTF
*complex;complex_.ttf
eur;EURR____.TTF
euro;EURRO___.TTF
*iso8;SIMPLEX_.TTF
*isocp;isocp___.ttf
*isocp2;isocp2__.ttf
*italic;ITALIC__.TTF
*monotxt;MONOTXT_.TTF
par;PANROMAN.TTF
rom;ROMANTIC.TTF
*romans;ROMANS__.TTF
romb;ROMAB___.TTF
romi;ROMAI___.TTF
sas;SANSS___.TTF
sasb;SANSSB__.TTF
sasbo;SANSSBO_.TTF
saso;SANSSO__.TTF
*simplex;SIMPLEX_.TTF
suf;SUPEF___.TTF
te;TECHNIC_.TTF
teb;TECHB___.TTF
tel;TECHL___.TTF
*txt;TXT_____.TTF

[mbaileywork]

There is a setting to turn off the true type fonts when publishing, type in "AEPDFFONTALT" in AutoCAD Electrical and change to "OFF". This will effectively do the same thing as modifying the ACADE.fmp, as shown above.