I was teaching a course on AutoCAD advanced this week and we were dealing with the issues of printing. I initially became frustrated with AutoCAD in 2007 because of how it generated 2-dimensional prints from 3-dimensional models. Since then, the software has evolved and matured to a stage where printing in essence is very easy provided you follow a few simple rules.
Planning your printing process to be robust when operating in the field means that you might not have access to your own printer plotter. Instead, you might have to visit any corner shop degenerate the required plans for distribution.
The reality is that most printing shops prefer printing PDF formats. Therefore, even though you can install your own printer drivers on everybody’s machines by using the printing wizard to generate a PC3 file, it would be much simpler to use the built in PDF printer.
Provided you give the express instruction to print the PDF 1:1 you should have no issues. That said, the full bleed page sizes have thin margins (not every plotter will be able to print the margins), therefore use the normal ISO page sizes.
The other consideration is that plots using color can impart a lot more information on the reader then black and white or monochrome. However, what would happen if you ended up in a shop that is without colored ink and only has black available? In that case you would want to be able to switch all the plots out to print in monochrome very quickly.
To achieve this, consider the below where typical A2 page size Page setup is created within the page setup manager.
Note that the printer is set to the AutoCAD PDF high quality printer (available when you install AutoCAD). As mentioned before, the paper size is just normal ISO A2.
The layout is set to plot at a scale of 1:1. If necessary, these margins can be altered within the properties of the printer, but in general the above will suffice. I’ve also highlighted with arrows the three plot styles I would think to be of interest to you: acad.ctb, Greyscale.ctb, monochrome.ctb.
acad.ctb is for printing color.
Greyscale.ctb is for printing the colors in shades of grey.
Monochrome.ctb is for printing everything in black and white.
I personally prefer printing at 300 dots per inch (dpi), therefore I use the “Custom” setting.
If you now want to manage all the A2 page sizes using the custom page setup you just created, then open each of the layouts, then select the A2custom layout and use the Set Current button to apply the custom layout to the layout pages.
Remember even if you do follow the advice above you might ultimately have to print the drawings. If you need printers and printer consumables remember that Micrographics has a hardware specialist to assist you to choose the correct printer or plotter (based on your needs).
If you feel more adventurous you might even invest in a touch screen table that can accommodate an A0 page size to hold your design meetings around and to eliminate paper from your office (adopting the Autodesk construction cloud can go a long way to achieving this).
If you need help adopting the AEC Collection or the Autodesk Construction Cloud in your practice or if you are looking to invest in hardware, please contact Micrographics so that we may be of assistance.
Still looking for answers? Start a discussion with other professionals in your industry!
