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I am trying to use named plot styles (set in my home-made .stp file) to manage the print output of my layouts. (The basic idea is to print all objects from all layers, what ever layer colour they have, in black; additionally I would like to play with lineweights, and I consider named plot styles to be the best solution for this.) The problem is: my named plot styles do not have any effect what so ever on the plot output. They also do not have effect on the screen output, although in the page setup the tickmark "Display plot styles" is set. Two interesting observations in addition: 1) Used on the model (as opposed to the paper layout viewports), the named plot styles do have effect. I.e. my objects are represented black, and with different lineweights, as long as "Display plot styles" is tickmarked. After un-ticking it, the model shows coloured lines as expected, and vice versa. 2) On the paper layout viewport, I do not get any visible difference from applying the named plot styles (as I said above), with one interesting exception: Used on the frame that comes with the viewport on the paper layout, the named plot styles have effect. E.g. when I set the colour of the respective named plot style to green and assign this plot style to the layer where the frame sits, the frame gets green. However, nothing happens when I do this with the layers where my ordinary objects (polylines) sit. I have spent now an entire 8 hours experimenting, searching in fora, etc. - to no result. I am using Autocad Architecture 2015. I started my project with the default settings, which was to use .ctb (colour plot styles) rather than .stb (named plot styles). I then changed this by using CONVERTCTP and CONVERTPSTYLES; from the resulting .stp-file, I deleted the colour mapping table in order be able to add more styles (as this is not possible when the colour mapping table is included.) Any ideas how to solve the issue? Am i doing something wrong? Or is it a bug, and could be solved by using Autocad Architecture 2016?

I am having issues with my main .stb file type; when I open the file I receive an error stating,"Invalid style name." The file opens but I can only modify existing styles, I cannot add new styles. Outside if mimicking a full new copy of the plot style, I'm stuck on this one. If I can't fix this, anyone know a way to change stb plot styles across multiple drawings? I'm on C3D 2015. Any thoughts? Thank you in advance.

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.

Hello, I am working on a massive project with many x-refs. We are using an STB, along with layer states for line weights. We are plotting from a sheet file, where our, and consultants' drawings, are x-reffed in. If we apply the layer state in the SHEET file, we will need to know all layers of our consultants. If we apply the layer state in the MODEL file, we will need vis-retain set to 0, and therefore we will need to redefine all of the layers of the x-ref to print grey every time we plot. Is there a way to work around this? Can you apply plot styles around different sheets more efficiently? Can you set an STB to look at the prefix of layers (ie. every layer starting with XXX, or every layer from a certain x-ref) be a certain plot style (ie. 60% grey)? Thanks, robyn