Plot Style Vs. Publish Issue

[Anonymous]

Good Morning Folks, 

A few Co-Workers and Myself seem to have found an Issue with Plotting Drawings Vs. Publishing Drawings..

So, 

It seems that when we use our Company Standard Plot Style and use the " PLOT " command while in the Drawing itself the PDF prints like we want it to.. Black and White with certain colors plotting certain line weights.. 

However, We have found that SOMETIMES if we use the " PUBLISH " Command and select all of the Drawings We're wanting to Publish to a PDF and assign the Company Standard Plot Style to them that it will Plot some of the drawings, Sometimes all of them, In color... 

I know some of you would say that the Solution would be to Plot each Drawing individually within the drawing using the " PLOT " Command... and you would be correct... but I'm looking for a Fix/Explanation as to why this issue is occurring while Publishing... 

To me, It's odd that the Plot Style Plots correctly individually but when Publishing with multiple drawings it seems to have a mind of its own and does not use the Plot style that's been assigned. 

I can't attach the Plot Style .Ctb file itself apparently, So I have created a Blank .Dwg with the Plot Style assigned inside and attached it.

I am using AutoCAD 2018 & CadWorx Plant Professional 2018

Thank you in advance for your help, 

John Rester 

[TheCADnoob]

Are there any errors that come up when publishing? Is there anything off in the plot log?

I have had issue with the appearance of Cadworx with some viewers, but not plotting (so far). 

Is this new with 2018 or has this been happening?

[pendean]

Post a screenshot of your PLOT command pop-up "ready to go" plus a screenshot of your PUBLISH command pop-up "ready to go", lets see what you opted to use: 99% of the time you made a change that matters.

>>>...I can't attach the Plot Style .Ctb file itself apparently...<<<
FWIW if you use ETRANSMIT command it will create a ZIP of all files your DWG needs, plus your DWG, that you can post to shar with others. If that is scary to use, you can still ZIP whatever you want to post here to share with others too.

[Anonymous]

I've blacked out the Save to location on publish... My Company does not like for our file locations to be seen..

Plot Pop up:

Publish Pop up:

[Anonymous]

No errors are popping up, it just Publishes the PDF's in Color.

I'm not sure if this has been happening before I got here 2 years ago, although I think it has from what I've heard my Co-workers say, but it has been a problem since I got here. I've always used the Monochrome Plot Style but to be consistent with our Company Standards I've recently been using our Company's Standard Plot Style and have been running into this issue..

I never had this Problem using Monochrome... but can't pinpoint the issue with this Company Standard Plot Style.

[pendean]

Block whatever you need, no issue with that one.

Instead of selecting an override, then also selecting your pagestup, opt for the PLOTTER NAMED IN PAGESETUP instead, see if your issue goes away

Ideally though, you should go through this process instead 

1. Launch Publish from a drawing that is not part of the publish set, but is configured with all your possible sheets and plotter options.
2. Bring in all the drawings/tabs to be published.
3. Import the pagesetup desired from the template file (in your case, one set up for exacting desired output).
4. PUBLISH.

[Anonymous]

okay so I gave this a try.

Double check me on following your Directions:

I Created two Drawings. Both have the Company Plot Style set to be used as a reference for all Publishing both now and in the future.

- one for Opening when ready to run the Publish Command.
- one to Import the Plot Style inside of the Publish Command.

I opened the Drawing I created Specifically to run the Publish Command, Ran " PUBLISH ", selected my desired drawings, Clicked the first drawing in the list and hit CTRL+A and selected the drop down for plot styles and imported the second drawing I created specifically to Import the Plot Style, then I selected the Plot to location, and last but not least I selected the " Plotter named in Page Setup " Option and clicked publish.

RESULTS:

- I ran one of my Projects which contained 32 drawings. all of which Plotted Properly.

one thing I did Notice is that it Published all 32 Drawings under into one PDF... with the " Plotter named in page setup " option it seems I can no longer select the " Publish Options " where you can select " Multi-sheet ".. is there a Fix to that as well?

I'm going to test this on a few more Projects to make sure this Solution continues to work while I wait on your response to my Multi Sheet question..

I will update you on my findings once you reply.

[Anonymous]

Also, after further inspection of the Multi-sheet PDF that was generated... I did Find some of the sheets to be missing the border as well as a lot of the viewports/2D items in the layout tab. ( see below )

I'm going to open those drawings and do a plot preview to see if this is a problem within the drawing or with the way it published.. but as far as I'm aware... when I plotted each drawing individually earlier this morning everything showed up the way it should have. 

[pendean]

>>>...one thing I did Notice is that it Published all 32 Drawings under into one PDF... with the " Plotter named in page setup " option it seems I can no longer select the " Publish Options " where you can select " Multi-sheet ".. is there a Fix to that as well?...<<<

Correct observation, nope you cannot add it. You'll need to use a 3rd party tool (lots of freeware as well as paid options) to combine your PDFs.

[pendean]

"missing" anything has nothing to do with PUBLISH command, could be an incorrect pagesetup for that layout, or an uninitiated layout, or just missing content in that layout.

[Anonymous]

I have adobe PRO, so combining them is not a problem.

It generated a Multi-Sheet PDF, where all 32 PDF's are Combined into one large PDF. 

When we Issue our Packages for our Projects we Issue individual PDF's for each Drawing Sheet. 

For instance:

instead of:      " RandomPlant_Piping System.pdf " which when opened contains 32 Combined sheets that makes up the entire drawing.

it would be: 

Drawing001.pdf

Drawing002.pdf

Drawing003.pdf

Drawing004.pdf

Drawing005.pdf

So, is there a way to make it Publish in " Single-Sheet File " mode, so each sheet is created as it's own individual PDF?

[Anonymous]

this may be a " Dumb " Question.... but does every Individual Drawing need to have the plot style assigned inside the drawing itself?

I thought if you published... and imported the plot style and assigned it to every drawing inside the Publish Pop up window under " Plot Style " it would overwrite each drawings plot style to the imported plot style... which should plot with the Viewports and Border included. 

[pendean · Accepted solution]

Check your PUBLISHCOLLATE setting, explained in HELP.

A pagesetup contains the plotstyle it needs to use if I understood your question correctly.

[Anonymous]

Good Morning Pendean,

I believe for the most part your solution here has worked... for the most part...


" A pagesetup contains the plotstyle it needs to use if I understood your question correctly. "

I was really asking more of the question that if in the Publish Pop up window, once you select all of the drawings you want to publish and then Set the specific plot style you want to use... wouldn't this overide any " Plot styles " that are set up within those individual drawings...

For instance.... say I have 10 drawings, all with Different Plot Styles saved within the Page setup in each individual drawing itself... Once initiating the Publish command and selecting all 10 of these drawings.. if you selected all of them and imported a plot style for them to use, Say Plot Style 1 for the sake of this example, would they not all Publish using " Plot Style 1 ", overwriting the Plot Styles assigned inside the Drawings themselves?

However, like I said earlier, I believe your solution was a Fix to this issue..

I seem to be able to Publish all of my Drawings in Black and White instead of Color now, thanks to your tip about Selecting " Plotter named in page setup " option in the Publish Pop up window.

Also,
The problem I was having where once you select " Plotter named in page setup " you can no longer select " Publish Options " and select whether you would like it to publish in " Multi-Sheet Type " or " Single-Sheet Type "...... This was solved using your advice on Checking my " PUBLISHCOLLATE " setting.

Conclusion:

My Question/Issue has been resolved, with very minimal issues afterwards...

It seems that some of my PDF's after Publishing, using the Methods above, are not Plotting exactly how they appear in the " Plot Preview " option in the " Plot " command.

However, 3 out of 32 Sheets is very reasonable and an acceptable margin of error for what I'm looking for.. its not a problem to have to individually " PLOT " 3 drawings or so instead of before where I was having to Plot each drawing Individually...

Thank you very much for your Friendly Help with this problem.