Guide to Plotting: Using HydraCAD's Plot Styles

Plot Styles have alternately gotten easier to use, and harder. Time was when you could simply start up the PLOT command and do everything you want right in there. No more. For whatever reason (AutoCAD wants to shift responsibility to the driver manufacturers?) you have to go to more than one place to set these up the way you want them.

Hydratec delivers three plot style files with our software: Hydragray.ctb and Hydracolor.ctb (both color dependent plot styles) and Hydragray.stb (named plot style). These are normally found in the H40\PROG\CAD200x folder where 200x could be 2004, 2006 or 2007 depending on your version of the software. If you do not find them, then download them by clicking on them in this paragraph and save them to your H40\PROG\CAD200x folder.

From AutoCAD's help:

Use Color Dependent Plot Styles

Uses color-dependent plot styles in both new drawings and drawings created in AutoCAD Release 14 or earlier. Color-dependent plot styles use the numbers from the AutoCAD Color Index to create a plot style table with a .ctb file extension. Each color is defined by a name or number ranging from 1 to 255. You can assign each color number to a different pen on a pen plotter to achieve different property settings in the plotted drawing. If this option is selected, a plot style is created for each color setting. You can also select this option by setting the PSTYLEPOLICY system variable to 1.

This setting is saved with the drawing. Once a drawing is saved with Use Color Dependent Plot Styles as the default, you can convert it to Use Named Plot Styles using the CONVERTCTB and CONVERTPSTYLES commands.

Use Named Plot Styles

Uses named plot styles in both new drawings and drawings created in earlier versions of AutoCAD. The drawing is plotted according to the property settings that you specify in the plot style definition. The plot style is defined in the plot style table attached to the layout. Named plot style tables are files with the file extension .stb. You can also select this option by setting the PSTYLEPOLICY system variable to 0.

This setting is saved with the drawing. Once a drawing is saved with Use Named Plot Styles as the default, you can convert it to Use Color Dependent Plot Styles using the CONVERTCTB and CONVERTPSTYLES commands. However, once you use CONVERTPSTYLES to convert a drawing from using a named plot style table to a color plot style table, you cannot use CONVERTPSTYLES to convert it back to using a named plot style table.

Doesn't make a lot of sense, does it?

Simply put, a ctb lets you map objects of a particular color to a pen. That pen can then have a color assigned to it. We have Red, White and Magenta object all mapped to Pen1, which is Black, for example, in the Hydracolor.ctb. In the Hydragray.ctb, the same thing happens except that the pens are all mapped to different shades of gray instead of colors.

The stb file lets you define a particular style and map certain layers to that. Styles can be mapped via the Layer Manager dialog box.

To use our ctb or stb files, it will be necessary to copy them into the AutoCAD plot styles folder and then choose the one you want to use.

1. Open up the AutoCAD OPTIONS folder by right-clicking on the command line and picking Options... (another little tip!)

2. Pick the Plot and Publish tab

3. Pick the Plot Style Table Settings... button.

4. Pick the Add or Edit Plot Style Tables... button. This will open up the Plot Style Manager (STYLESMANAGER) and the folder where AutoCAD stores it's own plot styles. Now, using Windows Explorer or My Computer, navigate to your H40\PROG\CAD200x folder and copy those ctb and stb files into this folder

5. Close the Plot Style folder and then choose whether you want to use the color dependent plot styles or named plot styles. After you pick your option, you should notice that the HydraCAD plot styles appear in the Default plot style table list. If you use named plot styles then you can set your default plot style of objects and layer 0 as well. Pick OK to leave this dialog and OK again to close Options.

Now - to assign plot styles to either Model space or Layout tabs, pick which tab you want to configure for and then pick the File pulldown and pick Page Setup Manager (PAGESETUP). If you are in Model space you will see *Model* as an option. If you are on a layout tab you will see each layout tab as options. Pick the option you want and pick Modify. You can then set the Plot style table that you want to use.

Next I will talk about how to edit those plot styles. Right now I am bushed from typing so much.