In today’s world, we’re used to viewing our documents the same as how they are going to look when printed. It’s a WYSIWYG world (What You See Is What You Get). Except for AutoCAD that is. Whether you use CTB’s or STB’s, AutoCAD displays your drawings in color, and then translates the drawing data to a different printed format.
Typically, we need to do a plot preview to see what the layout is going to look like when plotted, but did you know that you can get AutoCAD to display in a WYSIWYG format? It’s actually quite easy.
In the page setup dialog, you’ll find a control to “Display plot styles”. Checking this will change the display to represent what the CTB or STB will show when translated (after dismissing the dialogs, you may have to perform a REGENALL to see the results).
You can have your main layout set this way or create a separate layout to act as a “live” preview so that you can still work in your traditional colored layout view. Below is a before and after example of the same layout viewport, showing the traditional color view and that of the view with the plot style displayed.
Bonus Tip
This post is really two tips in one, as it works in reverse as well. If you ever get a file in from an outside source that isn’t displaying in colors as you might expect, check the “Display plot styles” control in the Page Setup. More than likely it is checked.
If you didn’t know about this control already, the reverse bonus tip may save you hours of debugging, stress and anxiety. Please don’t ask me how I know this. I just do.
You must be a registered user to add a comment. If you've already registered, sign in. Otherwise, register and sign in.