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Tutorial: Create a plot style (color-dependent)By Ellen Finkelstein

Do you need a way to integrate flexible displayinto your plots? For example, you may want to produce draft

plots that use less ink. Or you may want to plot all in black, or shades of gray. You may want to change solid

fills to hatches for some plots.

The way to create multiple plot variations is to use plot styles. You can create as many variations as you want,

save them, and use them for any drawing. Plot styles are saved in plot style table files.

There are two kinds of plot style tables: named (*.stb) and color-dependent (*.ctb). Named plot styles are more flexible,

are not the default type of plot style. Your choice of plot style table type is saved in the Windowsregistry, not in the

drawing. To switch, you change the type and then open a new drawing.

In this tutorial, Ill show you how to create and use a color-dependent plot style that sets the lineweight to 0.05 and the

screeningto 25%. Screening specifies the amount of ink used for a color and the default is 100%. Setting the screening

25% is a useful technique for saving ink for a draft plot.

Set the plot style type

To set the plot style type, follow these steps:

Right-click in the drawing area and choose Options top open the

Options dialog box. Then click the Plot and Publish tab.

Click the Plot Style Table Settingsbutton.

In the Plot Style Tables Settings dialog box, choose Use Color

Dependent Plot Styles or Use Named Plot Styles. You can also

specify a default plot-style table other than the standard acad.ctb

(color-dependent) or acad.stb (named) plot style. For this tutorial,

choose Use Color Dependent Plot Styles, if it isnt already

selected.Click OK.

Create a color-dependent plot style table

Youre now ready to create a color-dependent plot style table.

Choose Application button>Print> Manage Plot Styles to open the

Plot Style Manager. Youll see a Windows Explorer window, like

the one you see here. Notice the Add-A-Plot Style Table Wizard shortcut and the other plot style table files that

come with AutoCAD including one that sets screening to 25%.
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Double-click the Add-A-Plot Style Table Wizard shortcut to open the Add Plot Style Table wizard.

Click Next.

On the Begin screen, choose the source for your plot style table. For this tutorial, choose Use an Existing Plot

Style Table and click Next.

In the Browse File Name screen, choose acad.ctb, which is the default plot style table. Your new plot style table

be based on this one. Click Next.

In the File Name screen, enter a file name. I used Draft-screen-lwt. Click Next.

On the Finish screen, click the Plot Style Table Editor button. The Plot Style Table Editor opens.

Youve now created a color-dependent plot style table and youre ready to define a plot style for that table.

In the Plot Style Table Editor, click the Form View tab. On the left you see all the colors from 1 to 255. You can

select more than one color and make changes on the right to applythose changes to all selected colors.


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Click Color 1 (red). Use the scroll bar to scroll down to the last color, Color 255 (white). Press and hold Shift and

click Color 255. This selects all the colors.

For the Screening item, change the value to 25.

For the Lineweight item, choose 0.0500.

Click Save & Close. Youre now back in the last screen of the Add Plot Style Table wizard.


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Click Finish.

Youve now created a plot style. If you need to edit it, you can access it from several places. One option is to open the

Options dialog box as described above and click the Plot and Publish tab. There you can choose Add or Edit Plot Style

Tables. Youre now ready to apply your plot style.

Heres the drawing. You can see that it uses solid fills in two places and a heavy lineweight around the window shutters

Attach a plot-style table to a layout

You need to attach a plot-style table to a layout. You can attach different plot-style tables to different layouts to easily

create plot variations. Follow these steps:

Open a new drawing and draw some objects. In this case, draw an object with a wide lineweight and fill a closed

area with a solidfill, so you will see the contrast when you apply the plot style. Choose a layout tab in your draw

and set up one or more viewports. (If the layout tabs are not displayed, right-click the current layouts button on t

status bar and choose Display Layout and Model Tabs, as shown here.)

Right-click the layout tab and choose Page SetupManager.

In the PageSetup Manager dialog box, choose an existing page setup, if you have one, and click Modify. Otherw

click New, name the page setup and click OK. You now see the Page Setup dialog box for the layout.


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In the upper-right corner, choose your plot-style table from the Plot Style Table (pen assignments) drop-down list

For this tutorial, you choose Draft-screen-lwt.ctb.

Just below, check the Display Plot Styles check box. With this box checked, youll see the effect of your plot sty

on your layouts. (If the Display Plot Styles check box is already checked, youll need to use the REGEN comma

to display the plot style.)

Click OK.

In the Page Setup Manager, make sure that the page setup is selected and click Set Current.

Click Close to return to your layout.

You should now see the results of your page style. Compare the layout below with the drawing I showed earlier.

Searching for plot style?


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You can see that the solid fills are much lighter and the lineweight is lighter as well. That will save lots of ink!

Did you find this post useful?

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Related posts:

1. Getting the perfect color

2. Plot on a black & white printer

3. AutoCAD tutorial: Create a cell style for a table

4. Tutorial: Create a page setup for plotting

5. Save plot settings to a layout

February 12th, 2008 | Tags: color-dependent, plot style, plotting| Category: Plotting & Output

4 comments to Tutorial: Create a plot style (color-dependent)

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RicardoJune 23, 2011 at 6:32 pm

This was completely helpful towards my situation. Written perfectly clearly, though in a professional

manner; understood every step. Thank you very much for this, you helped me an aweful lot! Take care!

TessAugust 31, 2011 at 10:26 am

Thank you for all this information it has been really helpful. I wondered if you could help us locate the

architectural standards for AutoCAD line thicknesses etc so we can produce our own plotsyle. Thanks

Acad tutuorial | MeyerswoodworkApril 3, 2012 at 10:17 am

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