Prepare a drawing set for print using AutoCAD for Interior Design. This article walks you through the process of adjusting colors and line weights using the plot style table editor for optimal printing.
Key Insights
- The preparation process begins by opening the AutoCAD for Interior Design Pen Table PDF and typing 'plot' in AutoCAD. This brings up the plot style table for adjustments.
- Each color in the AutoCAD file can be adjusted to print a specific color and line weight. All colors can be selected together and set to print black. Each color can then be individually adjusted for line weight. The larger the line weight number, the wider the line will print.
- After making the necessary adjustments, make sure to save your changes under a file named 'vdci int design'. This newly created ctb file can then be applied to the layout.
This lesson is a preview from our AutoCAD for Interior Design Course Online (includes software) and Interior Design Professional Course Online (includes software & exam). Enroll in a course for detailed lessons, live instructor support, and project-based training.
To prepare our drawing set for printing, let's download and open the AutoCAD for Interior Design Pen Table PDF from the course. Once you have that open, you'll notice that it has line weights, and we'll get back to this really soon. Over here in AutoCAD, let's type the word plot, p-l-o-t, enter.
Now we want to go to the top right. We're looking for our plot style table. Let's pull this down, and let's start with monochrome, and then click on new.
Now we want to click on start from scratch and click next, and the file name will be vdci int design, so interior design, and we'll click next. Now there's a button that opens up that's plot style table editor, and that's where these colors come into play. Each one of our colors in our AutoCAD file will print to a certain color and line weight.
So let's go ahead and make some adjustments. First, we want these to all print black, so we'll click on color 1, scroll all the way to the bottom, hold shift on our keyboard, and click color 255. That selects every single color.
Now we can go over to the properties area, and right here where it says color, it's set to use object color, but we want to change that to black, so make that black. Now scroll back to the top and go through each color one by one now. So color 1 looks like it's red, and then we go to line weight.
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Right now it says use object line weight, but we want to change that to 0.3. So 0.3. You will notice there are three trailing zeros, but that's okay. The important part is the 0.3. Then go to color 2. That one is 0.4. Again, go to line weight and look for 0.4 with the trailing zeros. Color 3,0.3. Color 4 is 0.35. Color 5 is 0.2. Color 6 is 0.3. Color 7 gets a 0.4. You can see the bigger the number, the wider the line.
Color 8 gets a 0.5. It's a very thin line, so it's 0.05. Color 9 is also pretty thin. It's just 0.1. And then this color 255 is at the very bottom of the list. We'll select color 255 and the line weight there will be 0.4. With that, select save and close and finish.
Now make sure this says vdci int design. That's the ctb file that we just created. And then go ahead and click apply to layout.
And that's it. At this point we can click the cancel button.
