Topic: Why do they print differently?

[craigr]

In the attached dwg, there are two lines.

The top one is just a normal 'line'.

The bottom one is a PLine.

When plotted in Black & White, the top line plots black and bottom plots light gray.

Why aren't they both printing black like I want them to?

I don't want to plot Lineweights, but I don't know if that has anything to do with this or not.

craigr

[mjfarrell]

without opening the drawing...are you printing use CTB or STB?

are they both the same color, is their color BYLAYER or  BYOBJECT?

what happens IF you place them on same layer (a test layer) same color, same style?

[craigr]

The Plot style is 'none'.

They are both the same color - set to 'Bylayer'

[mjfarrell]

what happens if you use MONOCHOME CTB?

[mjfarrell]

The Plot style is 'none'.

and that would be why they have no style  

a best practice...
always assign a NAMED PAGE SETUP
always use a Plot Style - Otherwise you can't really control pen weight, or color

without assigning a plot style I think that the polyline WIDTH is so small your printer is faking you out...

are the lines the same when you print to pdf?

[craigr]

I gotta run for the evening.

I will have to play with it come Monday and explore .ctb & .stb and try to figure out what they are & how /when to use them.

I hate to change settings for this issue and mess up something else.

I guess if I HAVE to, I can explode the PLines so they will print right.

Thanks for the replies and have a good w/e.

craigr

[mjfarrell]

I guess if I HAVE to, I can explode the PLines so they will print right.



craigr

You start exploding objects on me.....and I'll STOP helping you. 

[JCTER]

Are there any "width" settings on the pline?

GlobalWidth, StartingWidth, EndWidth, etc?

[JCTER]

oh, yep.

Select polyline
Change "widths" in "properties" to "0"
????
PROFIT!!

[craigr]

PLine Width was the problem.

I had used one of our customized buttons that we use in PSpace Dwgs. It's width was set at .03. As soon as I reset it to 0, everything works fine.

Thanks for the help.

BTW, I REALLY didn't want to explode them.

craigr

[mjfarrell]

PLine Width was the problem.


BTW, I REALLY didn't want to explode them.

craigr

I knew that...   

[JCTER]

meh, it's no biggie to explode a pline if you don't use their widths, and are used to using regular lines instead.  My boss and I go back and forth on that crap. He hates polylines, and always explodes them if he has to use them.  I hate a single object drawn using many different lines, so I'll use MPEDIT to join all the segments back up into polylines.  We often work in the same drawing back and forth, so it gets 'fun' sometimes..

[craigr]

I like the segments to be ONE entity when possible. It makes it easier when moving / manipulating them.

[mjfarrell]

polylines are IMO always better to use than just dumb lines
as they offer far more editing options than lines do

[JCTER]

I like the segments to be ONE entity when possible. It makes it easier when moving / manipulating them.

Yea, that's how the boss is.  6 of one, half a dozen of... mmmm donuts.