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I'm familiar with creating assembly drawings in SolidWorks, but AutoCAD is a different animal. This layout looks hideous. Why won't my dashed lines and dimensions show in the second viewport? And even if they did, I don't think the annotative dimstyle is doing anything. And no matter what I do, the layout won't plot in monochrome.ctb; the lines still have their colors. And does anyone have advice on how to make this look more professional? A tremendous THANK YOU to anyone willing to help me with this. I think it's clear I officially have no idea what I'm doing. Delta Bracket_upload.dwg

Ok, maybe I haven't tried everything, but that's why I'm here asking your expert advice. ISSUE: I'm dealing with a 3rd party file. They have their own .ctb set up already (I'd prefer .stb, but I don't want to mess with their file). I can't get the lines to print in anything other than Default (which seems to be about 0.2?) Here's what I've tried so far, with no luck: 1. Set the color of my layers on the .ctb to print 0.6 2. Set the color of my layer on the .ctb to "lineweight of the object" and then changed the Layer's Properties (in the layer manager) to 0.6 3. Changed the properties of the lines THEMSELVES to be 0.6!!! 4. I set LWEIGHT to 1 and did "Display Lineweights", but I didn't want the thick lines to appear on the drawing, I just wanted them to PLOT. 5. I've also set PLTSCALE to 1 and MSLTSCALE to 1. I should add that the at the moment I've been printing to a standard office printer, and the lineweights might print if I send the files to a proper print shop, but I'm not sure. Arg, nothing is working... at this point, I've been reduced to doubling lines and filling in with the Solid hatch in order to achieve the thickness I'm looking for... :(any ideas? Any ideas?

:cry:I use to work for a firm that taught me AutoCAD, I have since left and invested in 2013 version. When we plotted our drawings the line weights (especially on Elevations) showed great dimension. I have played around to death and just cant get a good CTB file created...... Could anyone share or sale a file with me for reference. Thanks abunch.

We have our CTB files (as well as our pmp and pc3) files on the network. With 2008 thru 2012, we have edited our profiles to point to these. In 2013, one C3D PC sees them fine. A second C3D PC and a LT PC see the lone STB file and no CTB's. It appears the pmp and pc3 files are seen, however. I did locate a dialog box on LT that seems to be where you might choose between CTB and STB files, but we have it set to CTB and in there, you can select a default CTB file. And in that dialog box, the software sees our folder contents. Is these some toggle hidden in the interface that we need to flip for this to work? TIA

I have always used *.ctb files, and have always plotted by color. It just makes infinite sense to me. However, a recent client of mine used *.stb files, so I had to use them for the first time. I was pretty impressed with them, I'm surprised to say. You don't plot by color, unless I'm missing something, but for the most part you don't have to. The only instance where I still wanted the plot-by-color option was in having a background solid hatch pattern. I ended up going two layers for that hatch area, one with the pattern, the other with a background solid that I could independently control.

I have received a ctb file from someone else and need to use it for my dwgs - but it does not appear in the plot style table roll down of the page set dialogue box? Other ctb files are visible. I have used stylesmanager to locate where to copy it in, and done so. I have tried the command CONVERTPSTYLES in case my dwg was not color style based but I get this message: THIS COMMAND CONVERTS A COLOR DEPENDENT PLOT STYLE DRAWING TO USE NAMED PLOT STYLES. YOU SHOULD CONVERT YOUR COLOR DEPENDENT PLOT STYLES TABLES (CTB FILES) TO NAMED PLOT STYLE TABLES (STB FILE) WITH CONVERTCTB BEFORE YOU CONVERT YOUR DRAWING. Doesn't this mean that my dwg is already a color dependent plot style dwg? I have successfully copied and used this ctb file somewhere else yesterday, and feel I am doing the exact same thing, so very frustrated and lost. HELP! i really need to get these dwgs out! Thank you for any suggestions or help!

Hi Guys, I've been using CTB files to manage line colours, thicknesses etc - assigning a specific colour number to a line colour/thickness etc. This results in great looking plots, but aren't the colours that appear on-screen. I was wondering how can I make it look exactly like what you'll get but retain the automation/functionality of CTB files - rather than manually stuffing around with changing line weights/colours etc. Many thanks Ben

This is probably a stupid question :geek:but recently my boss has been very picky as to the darkness of some lines and text on our drawings. Usually we just print what ever we get, but obviously our pen settings are different from many companies. A couple of times the contractors have sent us CTB files and I wanted to know if I add these files to our autocad, will the plot come out the same as the ones the contractors have? Also there is one project that when I apply our settings to the plot, once it regens everything changes to white. This has been driving me nuts, and it only happens with one particular set of drawings. Any idea what am I doing wrong?