Printing an AutoCAD Drawing - AutoCAD 2011 and AutoCAD LT 2011: No Experience Required - page 785

First, you'll take a quick tour of this dialog box. Then you'll start setting up to
print.
You'll see seven areas of settings on this unexpanded version of the dialog box.
Some of the buttons and boxes won't be activated. I'll mention others only in
passing, because their functions are for more advanced techniques than those
covered in this topic. These functions are available when in model space as well.

Printer/Plotter
In this group, the Name drop-down list contains the various printing devices
to which AutoCAD has been configured; the current one, the DWFx ePlot (XPS
Compatible).pc3, is displayed in Figure 15.2. Just below the list, the name of the
driver and the assigned port or network path and asset name are displayed for
the selected printer.
Clicking the Properties button to the right opens the Plotter Configuration Editor
dialog box, which has three tabs of data specific to the current printer. You must
have a default printer assigned for the Properties button to be available. Most of this
will already be set up by your Windows operating system.
Back in the Plot dialog box, you'll notice that the Plot To File check box is selected
and grayed out. This is because the DWF plotter you have selected is a virtual device,
meaning it cannot create a physical print on a piece of paper and can create only a
file. In this case, a .dwf x file will be created, which can then be viewed and plotted to
an actual piece of paper using the free Autodesk Design Review program if you want.
When a physical device, such as a printer attached to your computer, is selected
in the Plot dialog box, the Plot To File check box will not be grayed out. Selecting
it will direct AutoCAD to make and save the print as a .plt file, rather than send-
ing it to the selected printer. Many reproduction service bureaus prefer to receive
electronic formats such as .plt , .dwf , .dwfx , and even .pdf files to print, rather
than AutoCAD .dwg files. Unlike .dwg files, the previously mentioned electronic
formats do not require you to send all of the support and externally referenced
files (fonts, images, external references, and so on) for the drawing to plot
correctly.

O

autodesk Design
review is included in
the default installation
of autoCaD, and it
may also be down-
loaded from the
autodesk website
( www.autodesk.com/
designreview )
for free.

Paper Size and number of Copies

In the Paper Size group, the drop-down list contains paper sizes that the current
plot device can recognize. To the right is the Number Of Copies group, which is
grayed out when plotting to a file; it allows you to specify how many copies of a
drawing to plot. When you have a large run of pages to print, it's prudent to print
a single copy of each, check for errors or omissions, and then print multiple cop-
ies of each page.