How to make lines thicker without adjusting lineweight?

[cameron2DN8T]

I know about the global width feature for polylines. I also know about lineweights. My boss does not want to use lineweights, and does not want to have to go in and adjust every line's width manually. My boss stated that his old company used to use a feature within the .ctb that allowed certain colors to be plotted with a certain width, independent of the lineweight feature. Does this really exist? 

[ennujozlagam]

yes, just type plot and adjust your ctb by color or use object color. thanks

[cameron2DN8T]

This would work. However, we keep the "Plot object lineweights" setting off within the plot settings. To my understanding, mere colors do not have thickness to them, only by associated lineweight or by adjusting the global width. We are trying to find a way to adjust certain line's pen width, without using lineweight. 

[Kent1Cooper]

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@cameron2DN8T wrote:

This would work. However, we keep the "Plot object lineweights" setting off within the plot settings. To my understanding, mere colors do not have thickness to them, only by associated lineweight or by adjusting the global width. We are trying to find a way to adjust certain line's pen width, without using lineweight. 

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What is your reason for keeping "Plot object lineweights" off?  I think the only way to do what you want is through colors that have plotted weights assigned to them.

[RobDraw]

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@cameron2DN8T wrote:

My boss stated that his old company used to use a feature within the .ctb that allowed certain colors to be plotted with a certain width, independent of the lineweight feature. Does this really exist? 

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This has been around for a very long time and the vast majority of places using AutoCAD still use this method. If your boss wants it, learn it, use it, love it.

[Anonymous]

Does this method work if you want to share dwg file? Does pllotable lineweight transport to another machine without copying setting used in the one that was making that drawing? 

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@RobDraw wrote:

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@cameron2DN8T wrote:

My boss stated that his old company used to use a feature within the .ctb that allowed certain colors to be plotted with a certain width, independent of the lineweight feature. Does this really exist? 

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This has been around for a very long time and the vast majority of places using AutoCAD still use this method. If your boss wants it, learn it, use it, love it.

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[s.borello]

Old policies are meant to be updated when better ways of doing said tasks are available. 

[Kent1Cooper]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Does this method work if you want to share dwg file? Does pllotable lineweight transport to another machine without copying setting used in the one that was making that drawing? ....

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They would need the same pen assignments [.ctb] file on the other machine.  The ETRANSMIT command exists to send a drawing and include along with it the associated .ctb file [as well as other things, such as fonts].

[RobDraw]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Does this method work if you want to share dwg file? Does pllotable lineweight transport to another machine without copying setting used in the one that was making that drawing? 

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The other machine needs to have access to the .ctb file. If both machines are on a network the .ctb file can be stored there and AutoCAD can be set-up to point to the location or if the other machine is elsewhere, the .ctb can sent to them but it is only needed for printing purposes.

[neaton]

Something in your process will need to change:

• If you set each color to have a thickness in your .ctb you need to "Plot object lineweights" setting On and etransmit the .ctb file with your drawings
• If you want to keep "Plot object lineweights" setting Off you have to set the lineweight thickness of each object

Nancy

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@cameron2DN8T wrote:

This would work. However, we keep the "Plot object lineweights" setting off within the plot settings. To my understanding, mere colors do not have thickness to them, only by associated lineweight or by adjusting the global width. We are trying to find a way to adjust certain line's pen width, without using lineweight. 

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[cameron2DN8T]

So to reiterate my question, how exactly do you plot thicker lines while having "Plot objects lineweight" off?

[RobDraw]

By definition, that would be an oxymoron. The only way to accomplish that is to use polylines.

Good luck.

[cameron2DN8T]

Haha ok good one. How about for polylines then?

[RobDraw]

The real question is that you want to have lineweights and not use object lineweights, why? What is your problem with using object lineweights to get the desired result? You're shooting yourself in the foot.

[cameron2DN8T]

I agree, but my boss doesn't want to. Only reason being is because we reference several other consultants .dwg's, and don't want to have to go in and adjust each of their lines to what we need them as, which is 99% of the time to contain no lineweight. We simply want only some of our linework to appear thicker, that's it. But autocad doesn't seem to have an option to do that unless we either work with lineweights or global width setting. It's not too difficult to use the global width setting manually or individually, but it would be nice if autocad had an option to plot only certain items' lineweights. The best workaround we have for now is the 'PLINEWID' command.