shows the drawing in a way that you want to plot. (I cover plotting paper space layout tabs in the section “Plotting the Layout of the Land,” later in this chapter.) This procedure doesn’t deal with controlling plotted lineweights (see the “Plotting Lineweights and Colors” section later in this chapter for those details). It should, however, result in a piece of paper that bears some resemblance to what AutoCAD displays on your computer monitor.
Follow these steps to make a simple, not-to-scale, monochrome plot of a drawing:
1. Open the drawing in AutoCAD.
2. Click the Model tab at the bottom of the drawing area to ensure that you’re plotting the model space contents.
I explain model space and paper space in Chapter 3, and I explain how to plot paper space layouts later in this chapter.
3. Zoom to the drawing’s current extents (choose View>Zoom>Extents) so you can verify the area you’re going to plot.
The extents of a drawing consist of a rectangular area just large enough to include all the objects in the drawing.
4. To display the Plot dialog box, click the Plot button on the Standard toolbar.
The Plot dialog box appears, as shown in Figure 12-2.
Figure 12-2: The Plot dialog box.
5. In the Printer/Plotter area, select a device from the Name list.
6. In the Paper Size area, select a paper size that’s loaded in your printer or plotter.
Of course, you must make sure that the paper size is large enough to fit the drawing at the scale you want to plot it at. For example, if you want to plot a D-size drawing, but you have only a B-size printer, you’re out of luck — unless you resort to multiple pieces of paper and lots of tape.
7. In the Plot Area area (sponsored by the Department of Redundancy Department), choose Extents.
If you set limits properly, as I suggest in Chapter 3, then choose Limits instead in order to plot the drawing area that you defined. The Window option — that is, plot a window whose corners you pick — is useful when you want to plot just a portion of your drawing.
8. In the Plot Offset area, choose Center the Plot.
Alternatively, you can specify offsets of zero or other amounts in order to position the plot at a specific location on the paper.
9. In the Plot Scale area, either choose Fit to Paper or uncheck Fit to Paper and specify a scale (by choosing from the drop-down list or typing into the two text boxes).
For most real plotting, you’ll plot to a specific scale, but feel free to choose Fit to Paper for now. If you do want to plot to a specific scale, see the “Instead of fit, scale it” section later in this chapter for guidance.
10. Click the More Options button (at the bottom-right corner of the dialog box, next to the Help button.
The Plot dialog box reveals additional settings, as shown in Figure 12-3.
Figure 12-3: The expanded Plot dialog box.
11. In the Plot Style Table (Pen Assignments) area, choose Monochrome.ctb or Monochrome.stb.
AutoCAD may ask you whether to “Assign this plot style table to all layouts?” Answer Yes to make Monochrome.ctb (or Monochrome.stb) the default plot style table for the paper space layout tabs as well as the Model tab, or answer No to make the change apply only to the current tab. The “Plotting with style” section later in this chapter describes plot style tables.
12. In the Plot Options area, make sure that Plot With Plot Styles is on and Save Changes to Layout is off, as shown in Figure 12-3.
Leaving Save Changes to Layout turned off tells AutoCAD to use any plot settings changes that you make only for this plot — AutoCAD will revert to the original plot settings the next time you plot the drawing.
After you become confident with plotting, you may want to turn on this setting so that AutoCAD
13. In the Drawing Orientation area, choose Portrait or Landscape.
The postage stamp-sized preview in the middle of the Plot dialog box should help you decide on the right orientation. If not, the full preview in the next step will tell you for sure.
14. Click the Preview button and check that the drawing displays on the paper at the correct orientation and size, as shown in Figure 12-4; then, right-click and choose Exit to return to the Plot dialog box.
Figure 12-4: Preview of coming plot-tractions.
15. If you found any problems in the preview, adjust the plot settings (for example, Plot Area, Plot Scale, or Drawing Orientation) and repeat the preview until the plot looks right.
16. Click OK to create the plot.
When AutoCAD finishes generating and sending the plot, it displays a “Plot and Publish Job Complete” balloon notification from the status bar. If you decide that you don’t want to see these notifications, right -lick the Plot/Publish Details Report Available icon near the right end of the status bar and deselect Enable Balloon Notification.
There — 16 steps, as promised. If for some reason your plot didn’t work, well, I warned you that AutoCAD plotting was complicated and temperamental!
Read the rest of this chapter for all the details about the numerous other plotting options that can cause plotting to go awry. If you’re in a big hurry, turn directly to the troubleshooting section, “Troubles with Plotting,” at the end of the chapter.
One of the keys to efficient plotting is liberal use of AutoCAD’s partial and full preview features. (To maintain political fairness, I recommend conservative use of some other AutoCAD options elsewhere in the book.)
The postage stamp-sized partial preview in the middle of the Plot dialog box is a quick reality check to make sure your plot fits on the paper and is turned in the right direction. If the plot area at the current scale is too large for the paper, AutoCAD displays thick red warning lines along the side(s) of the sheet where the drawing will be truncated.
Press the Preview button to see a full preview in a separate window. You see exactly how your drawing lays out on the paper and how the various lineweights, colors, and other object plot properties will appear. You can zoom and pan around the preview by using the right-click menu. (Any zooming or panning that you do does not affect what area of the drawing gets plotted — zooming and panning is just a way to get a better look at different areas of the plot preview.)
In most real plotting situations, you want to plot to a specific scale rather than let AutoCAD choose an oddball scale that just happens to maximize the drawing on the paper. And if you’re going to plot the Model tab of a drawing to scale, you need to know its drawing scale factor. Chapter 3 describes setup concepts and Chapter 9 provides some tips for determining the scale factor of a drawing that someone else created.
If your drawing was created at a standard scale, such as 1:50 or ?”=1’–0”, then you simply choose the scale from the handy drop-down Scale list in the Plot dialog box. If your scale is not in the list, then type the ratio
