348 Part III: If Drawings Could Talk

Plotting the Layout of the Land

In the section “Plotting success in 16 steps,” earlier in this chapter, we show you how to plot the model space representation of your drawing by making sure that the Model tab is active when you open the Plot dialog box. In most industries, however, model space plotting went the way of the dodo 20 years ago. Paper space gives you many additional options for controlling the look of your output without having to modify the underlying geometry. So most of the time, you will want to plot a paper space layout instead.

Paper space is the environment that’s specifically designed for outputting hard copy of your drawings. If you need a refresher on paper space or layouts, have another look (or a first look!) at Chapter 5.

As we explain in Chapter 5, AutoCAD gives you two alternative ways of switching between full-screen model space and the paper space layouts stored in the drawing. If you choose to display the Model and Layout tabs, you simply click the appropriate tab to select the one you want. If instead you hide the Model and Layout tabs, use the Model and Layout buttons, plus Quick View Layouts, on the status bar. For the complete lowdown on using Quick View Layouts, refer to Chapter 5. In this section, we explain using this feature to print your paper space layouts.

Plotting a paper space layout is pretty much like plotting model space except that you need to find the appropriate layout first and make sure that its tab is selected before you open the Plot dialog box, as follows:

1.Click Quick View Layouts on the status bar and scroll through the image panel.

The Quick View image panel opens in the lower part of the drawing area and displays a preview panel of model space and each layout stored in the drawing.

2.Move your mouse pointer across the images in the Quick View panel and pause over the image of the layout that you want to plot.

As you move your mouse over each image, icons appear: Publish at the upper-right corner, and Plot at the upper left. We describe the PUBLISH command briefly in Chapter 20. In this chapter, we’re sticking with PLOT.

3.Click the Plot button in the upper-left corner of the image panel of the layout that you want to plot.

The Plot dialog box appears with the name of the layout to be plotted displayed in the title bar. (In Figure 16-6, we’re plotting a layout named D-Size Layout.)

www.it-ebooks.info

Chapter 16: The Plot Thickens 349

If no one has set up a layout yet, AutoCAD creates a default layout. (If the Show Page Setup Manager for New Layouts setting on the Display tab of the Options dialog box is turned on, you’ll see the Page Setup Manager dialog box first — just click the Close button.) The default layout probably won’t be useful for real projects, but you can use it to find out about the layout plotting procedure. Refer to Chapter 5 for instructions on creating a real layout.

4. Specify a Printer/Plotter Name and a Paper Size.

If you don’t have a printer capable of outputting larger than letteror tabloid-size sheets, you can still experiment by selecting a device that outputs to file, such as DWG To PDF.pc3.

5.In the What to Plot drop-down list, choose Layout, as shown in Figure 16-6.

The Layout option is available only when plotting a layout tab; Limits is available only when plotting the Model tab.

6.Specify the Plot Offset (such as 0 in both the X and Y directions).

Specifying the Plot Offset as 0 in both X and Y directions places the lower-left corner of the plotted drawing at the lower-left corner of the printable area.

7.In the Plot Scale area, select 1:1 from the Scale drop-down list, as shown in Figure 16-6.

One of the big advantages of layouts is that you don’t need to know anything about drawing scale in order to plot the drawing: hence, the name paper space. Figure 16-6 shows the proper settings for plotting a layout.

To create a half-size plot of a layout, select 1:2 from the Scale dropdown list. In addition, select the Scale Lineweights check box to reduce lineweights proportionally. (We cover plotting lineweights in the next section.)

If you find that the layout is too big for your plotter’s largest paper size at a plot scale of 1:1, you can select Extents from the What to Plot dropdown list and then select the Fit to Paper check box in the Plot Scale area. Alternatively, you can close the Plot dialog box and fix the problem if you want to have a paper space layout that permanently reflects a new paper size. Use the Page Setup dialog box to modify the layout settings, or copy the layout and modify the new copy.

8.Click the More Options button and change any additional plot options that you want to.

Refer to Steps 11 through 13 in the earlier section, “Plotting success in 16 steps.”

www.it-ebooks.info