Blocks will not print as monochrome

[thenottakenname]

Hello all,

I'm having an issue where when I'm trying to print a drawing, with the plot style set to monochrome, the titleblocks I have are still trying to print as colour and come out faded.

These blocks were originally in an AutoCAD DWG, then used for an Inventor DWG template, before being exported back out as an ACAD drawing. Our client uses a different program altogether (MicroStation), and trying to open Inventor DWG's in it causes all views to appear for each view you place down, it's weird, and thus the need to convert back.

The titleblocks in the original ACAD drawings will print in monochrome; the Inventor drawings print in monochrome as well.

The converted DWG still recognizes those blocks as blocks, and can still be edited with the enhanced attribute editor, so I don't understand why those specifically try to print as grayscale instead of monochrome.

Any advice would be excellent and appreciated.

[thenottakenname]

I should mention - in both cases for the AutoCAD drawings, the whole drawing is done in model space. Our company doesn't use layouts at all, unfortunately.

[Valentin_CAD]

@thenottakenname,

Uncheck the "Plot Transparency".

Check "Plot with plot styles".

Most likely solution from AutoCAD Support: 

• Black and white (monochrome/grayscale) color-dependent plot style (CTB) plots color in AutoCAD

Solution:

Do one or more of the following: 

• Modify the objects and layers to use an Index Color instead of True Color or Color Book. 

• To plot True Color objects in black and white, convert the plot style table from CTB format (Color Dependant Plot Style Table) to STB format (Named Plot Style Table) and then configure the DWG file to use this STB file instead of the CTB.

To convert your CTB file to an STB file

1. On the command line, enter the convertctb command.
2. In the Select File dialog box, select the CTB file that you want to convert and then click Open.
3. In the Create File dialog box, enter a name for the new STB file and then click Save.

To configure your DWG file to use the STB file

1. On the command line, enter convertpstyles.
2. Click OK.
3. In the Select File dialog box, select the STB file that you have created and then click Open.

• Set the Model tab or viewport to use a non-3D visual style, such as 2D Wireframe or Legacy Hidden. For AutoCAD LT, this option is not available, so copying all the model content to a new drawing and/or creating new viewports will be necessary. Alternatley, change the "Shade plot" setting to Legacy Hidden in either the Plot or Page Setup dialog.

• Ensure that the checkbox for 'Plot with plot styles' is checked in Plot dialog.  

• Replace the viewport or recreate the layout (see To Create a New Layout Viewport).
  1. Alternatively copy a valid viewport and paste it into the layout. 
  2. Adopt the viewport afterwards to the specific need.

Note: Copying elements from the corrupted layout can introduce corruption into the new layout. 

[thenottakenname]

Hello Valentin, thanks for the response,

here's what I have the plot settings as now - the only difference from what I had before is the Legacy Hidden shade plot option.

I have the model space set to 2D Wireframe already as well. However, when printing with the Legacy Hidden option, the text prints out legibly now, but still grey. I then changed the layer to an Index Color from a True, and they printed out black. The only downside is that their logo has become a wireframe and won't print properly, but it's a lot better than it was.

I'm not keen on creating a new .ctb for these drawings, it'll probably cause headaches down the road if they lose that file.

So I take it that somehow in the exporting from Inv to ACAD, those blocks were converted into wireframes or something? I'd still ideally like to be able to not have to set the plot options to fix these, as that's not exactly an option for when they print from another program.

[Valentin_CAD]

@thenottakenname ,

Post the file and lets see if there is a better solution.

[thenottakenname]

File is attached - the usual can't share company info yadda yadda, but I've placed the revision notes block into this drawing. Did a print to make sure, and the text has the issue, so it should work for you.

[Valentin_CAD]

@thenottakenname ,

Using the following settings it looked good on a PDF.

The text may look a bit grayish on the PDF, but when zooming in its ok.

May want to print and see how it looks on paper.

[pendean]

@thenottakenname TrueColors are ignored by CTB plot style tables, that is your issue: you only get to use ACI colors 1-255 with CTBs

Now you know. Change those colors or adopt the more elaborate-to-use STB plot style tables across all of your corporate files.

HTH

[Valentin_CAD]

@thenottakenname ,

---

@thenottakenname wrote:

I'm not keen on creating a new .ctb for these drawings, it'll probably cause headaches down the road if they lose that file.

---

In my opinion, using a *.CTB file is a great way to facilitate standardizing your printing across your organization, especially when rolling out your drawings. And as @pendean emphasized, remember to use the Index Colors [1-255] instead of True Color or Color Book).

In addition, consider using the ETransmit command to avoid the "headaches" of losing essential files to the drawing.

[thenottakenname · Accepted solution]

Thanks to the both of you, and apologies for the late reply.

I sent the table as it was originally, so not with the colors changed. We normally have all our colors as index colors, its just that the titleblock stuff we were sent was not. In regards to the CTB's, I hear ya, I'm just a new guy at a small company where they've been doing things the same way for so long that they're not keen on changing at all. Heck, I can't even convince them to use more than just a single lineweight for everything. The issue in general there though is I don't know if the .ctb would work with the MicroStation software our client is using.

Regardless, I have figured out the problem! I was about to give up and just transfer the models into a new titleblock with text that worked, when I found out that the good text copied into the bad drawing changed its text appearance too. I went into the text styles and changed ROMANS from romans.shx to another font and then back to romans.shx, which gave me the option to apply, although technically it was the same font. Then all the text appeared correctly and prints in monochrome to boot.

So somehow, when I imported the ACAD blocks into Inventor for use in a titleblock, it either overwrote or corrupted romans.shx with an Inventor version. It maintained the Inventor version when converted out as a dwg, so basically just "resetting" the font back to the ACAD version fixed it all up.

A bit of an odd one, but you should be able to see what I mean using that test file. Looks like I win the solution on this one folks, and I appreciate all your help and advice!