Create a Paper or Plot File Drawing Set

You can publish a drawing set to a plotter or plot file.

You can assemble drawing sheets into a customized drawing set and publish the sheets to the plotter named in the page setup specified for each sheet. If the plot device named in the page setup is a paper plotter, then your output will be a paper drawing set.

If the plotter is configured to plot to a file, the sheets are saved to files in the plot file location specified in the Publish Options dialog box. Each drawing sheet's plot file is saved with the same name as the sheet, with the appropriate file extension for the file (for example, .plt, .jpg, or .bmp). The default location can be changed in the Options dialog box, Plot and Publish tab, under Plot to File.

See Also

Set Publish Options

Procedure

To create and publish a paper or plot file drawing set

Open a drawing. Click Output tabPublish panelPublish. At the Command prompt, enter publish.
In the Publish dialog box, the drawing layouts are shown in the Sheets List. To create the drawing set, modify the list of drawing sheets by doing any of the following as needed:
- Add sheets. To add sheets from other drawings, click the Add Sheets button (or drag drawings from the desktop). In the Select Drawings dialog box, select drawings. Click Select to add them to the list of sheets in the Publish dialog box. All of the layouts in a drawing become individual sheets in the list of drawing sheets. You can remove the individual sheets if you do not want them to become part of the drawing set. A layout must be initialized (its paper size must be defined in the page setup to any size other than 0 x 0) before it can be published.
NoteTo include all layouts when you add sheets to a drawing set, ensure the Include Layouts When Adding Sheets option is selected on the shortcut menu or in the Publish dialog box.
- Include model layouts. If an uninitialized (the paper size is not defined in the page setup or is set to 0 x 0) model layout is included, it will be marked as Uninitialized in the Status column on the sheet list. It can be plotted if a page setup override is applied.
NoteTo include the Model when you add sheets to a drawing set, ensure the Include Model When Adding Sheets option on the shortcut menu is selected.
- Remove sheets. To remove sheets from the list, select one or more sheets in the list. Click the Remove Sheets button. To remove all sheets, right-click. Click Remove All.
- Reorder sheets. To reorder the sheets up or down one position in the list, select a sheet. Click either the Move Sheet Up or Move Sheet Down button. Sheets in the drawing set are viewed or plotted in the order shown in the list.
- Rename sheets. To rename a sheet, select it in the list and right-click, Click Rename Sheet. Enter the new sheet name.
- Change page setups. To change the page setup for a layout, select the sheet. In the Page Setup list, select a named page setup from the list, or select one or more sheets in the list and right-click. Click Change Page Setup. In the Page Setup list, select a page setup or select Import to import page setups from another drawing or template. In the Import Page Setups dialog box, select a drawing with one or more page setups. Click Import. In the Page Setup list, select a named page setup.
NoteChange the page setup for each layout depending on your desired output. Model space page setups can only be applied to model space sheets; paper space page setups can only be applied to paper space sheets.
- Copy sheets. To copy one or more drawing sheets, select the sheets in the list and right-click. Click Copy Selected Sheets. The copied drawing sheets are added and highlighted at the end of the sheet list. When a sheet is copied, its name is created by the addition of -Copy(n) at the end of the original sheet name. For example, if you create one copy of a sheet called Plumbing, the copied sheet is called Plumbing-Copy(1). Each time you copy the same sheet, the n is incremented by 1. By creating copies of a sheet, you can have different page setups and other settings for the same sheet.
When your list of drawing sheets is assembled and configured the way you want for your paper or plot file drawing set, click the Save Sheet List button.
In the Save List As dialog box, in the File Name box, enter a name for the drawing set list. Click Save.
The drawing set list is saved as a DSD (Drawing Set Descriptions) file.
In the Publish dialog box, under Publish To, select Plotter Named in Page Setup.
Click Publish to start the process.
If you have background publishing enabled, the animated plotter icon on the right side of the status bar indicates that the publish job is in progress: paper drawings are being plotted or plot files are being created.
To view information about the processed publish job, right-click the plotter icon on the right side of the status bar. Click View Plot and Publish Details.

To publish multiple layouts

Quick Reference

Commands

System Variables