topic Re: Need help with plotting routine in Visual LISP, AutoLISP and General Customization Forum

Need help with plotting routine

sdvannelli — Thu, 27 Mar 2025 16:22:47 GMT

Autodesk changed something between 2025.1.1 and 2025.1.2 (and now 2026) in the way that plotting using an Adobe specific pc3 shows the default file name.

Since the dawn of time, I have been using the attached lisp to have a 1 click plotting routing. Initializing this brought up a dialogue box that looked like this:

In 2025.1.2 and 2026, the exact same routine now shows this for every tab:

It no longer gives any layout tab info, so plotting one tab after another just keeps defaulting to the same file name. I'm looking for a way for it to somehow get the layout tab name into the default file name that pops up, like it used to do.

Using DWG to PDF comes up with this, which I like:

But I do not like other things about the plots from DWG to PDF, so I would prefer using my Adobe PDF.pc3 file.

Any way this can be tweaked (or re-written) to simply force the name that pops up to include the layout name?

Thanks

Re: Need help with plotting routine

pendean — Thu, 27 Mar 2025 16:33:34 GMT

@sdvannelli wrote:
...It no longer gives any layout tab info...

More users than not asked for that for decades, it's now live.

May I assume you never use SSM (SheetSet Manager)? And you're not interested in organizing and publishing with more control that way?

Re: Need help with plotting routine

sdvannelli — Thu, 27 Mar 2025 17:01:25 GMT

Correct. I do not use it and am not interested. Just simply want the name to come up the same as it did previously.

Re: Need help with plotting routine

paullimapa — Thu, 27 Mar 2025 20:14:06 GMT

Since you're using a PDF device that's not built-in to AutoCAD then that's not an Autodesk issue to resolve.

You can change your lisp function to accommodate always setting the filename the way you want which in this case would be the drawing file name followed by the layout name before you go into the plot sequence like this:

(setq filename (strcat (getvar 'dwgprefix) (vl-filename-base (getvar 'dwgname)) " " (getvar 'ctab) ".pdf"))

Re: Need help with plotting routine

Sea-Haven — Fri, 28 Mar 2025 00:32:42 GMT

Have a look at this, Potpdfange, edit the "PC3" file name and the pot window values as its based on 0,0 and 841x594 an A1 sheet. Save Multigetvals.lsp to a support path. PS enter end 99 for all.