Printing an AutoCAD Drawing - AutoCAD 2011 and AutoCAD LT 2011: No Experience Required - page 796

You have taken a quick tour of the Plot dialog box, and you still have the
A-100.dwg , A-200.dwg , and C-101.dwg drawings to print. As you set up the print
a little later in this chapter, refer to this section for an explanation of the tools, if
necessary.
Applying Plot-Style tables
Because of its cost, color plotting is typically reserved for exhibit drawings and
other presentation scenarios. Chances are, most of the drawings you'll create
will be integrated into a larger construction document set that's prepared in
black and white. Consider the layers inside your drawing for a moment; each
layer has a color assigned to it, which is then in turn used to display the objects
drawn on that layer. Without instruction, AutoCAD will screen the lighter col-
ors in your drawing when plotted in black and white. Typically, this is not the
desired result, and so Plot Style Tables give you control over the way AutoCAD
interprets color when plotting.
As you'll learn in this section, plot-style tables do more than determine what
color objects plot when a drawing is plotted. These tables can also control how
lineweights are assigned and also control whether screening is applied or not.
Using plot-style tables to control color, screening, and lineweight is incredibly
popular among industry professionals. In this chapter, the monochrome.stb table
will be used; it uses the Lineweight layer property to determine the thickness of
plotted lines. You'll learn more about the Lineweight layer property later in this
chapter.
introducing Plot-Style table Files
A plot style is a group of settings that is assigned to a layer, a color, or an object.
It determines how that layer, color, or object is printed. Plot styles are grouped
into plot style tables that are saved as files on your hard drive. Two kinds of plot
styles exist:
Color-Dependent Identified by their .ctb file extension, color-dependent plot-
style tables map each of the 255 index colors. Plot styles are determined based
on the color of an object.
named Identified by their .stb file extension, named plot styles let you specify
comprehensible names for your plot styles. You can create as many or as few
plot styles as you need. Named plot styles are assigned to layers in the same way
colors are.