Topic Title

Our firm recently switched plotters, so for thousands of drawings our plot settings no longer work.
Is there an easy way to change print settings for multiple drawings at once or are we stuck with changing each drawing's plot settings individually?

This has been a big request of mine for a long time, but unfortunately there is no easy way - you'll have to change the plotter and paper size for each individual file.

Few things you can do related to this.

Work around the missing Printer Popup:
You can rename the new printer to the old printer name, setup another copy of the printer with old printer name or just leave the old printer installed even though it's missing so you don't get the little pop dialog box that tells you the printers missing. A setting to disable this message would be nice, chances are you will already know what printers are available to you right?

Non-descript Printer Names
We ran into this same issue years back and decided going forward to just name our plotters and printer with non-descript names like 'Plotter' & 'LaserJet'. It works great, especially when different users print to different printers, so no matter which device their computer is set to print to for 'LaserJet', Datacad just knows the name and the windows printer settings handle sending the prints to the different printers. Yes it was a process for a year or so to update the current working files but once they were set everything going forward uses the non-descript names which makes it nice. We have swapped multiple printers since without a hiccup.

Use Printer Settings and/or Toolbar Buttons
Another option once you have your workarounds for the old printer info is to setup saved Print settings. We created a drop down toolbar that loads all the settings for our most common printer settings that use the non-descript names (recommended) or the new printer name so we don't have to hassle with adjusting anything in the printer dialogs. If you do not have a printer installed with the name of the old printer, these will not work as they will get stuck on the little popup telling you the printer is missing. If you do have a printer setup with the old name, then you can use these DPS files and/or drop downs to quickly load all your new settings in one single click. The only thing you have to adjust once you have things setup to this point is if a new printer's paper size list is different than the old printers. You can easily just update the DPS files once when this happens.

Code: Select all[Prints]
DropDownCount=41
Hint=Single Prints
Icon=STD_Print

Hint00=Print Preview
Icon00=Preview
A00=^ë^:^S5^F1^

Hint01=Paper Sizes
Icon01=Paper Size
P01=rundll32 url.dll,FileProtocolHandler http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_size#Architectural_sizes

Hint02=Load ADE Scales
Icon02=Scale ADE
A02=^:^F0^F4^F1^F7^ADE Scales.scl$^;^

Hint03=Load Architectual Scales
Icon03=Scale Architectural
A03=^:^F0^F4^F1^F7^Architectural.scl$^;^

Hint04=Load Engineering Scales
Icon04=Scale Engineering
A04=^:^F0^F4^F1^F7^Engineering.scl$^;^

// 05 Line Break

Hint06=8x11 Landscape 1"
Icon06=Print 8x11 Landscape
A06=^:^S5^S4^8x11 1 Landscape.dps$^F0^

Hint07=8x11 Landscape 1 1/2"
Icon07=Print 8x11 Landscape
A07=^:^S5^S4^8x11 1-1_2 Landscape.dps$^F0^

Hint08=8x11 Landscape 1/4"
Icon08=Print 8x11 Landscape
A08=^:^S5^S4^8x11 1_4 Landscape.dps$^F0^

Hint09=8x11 Landscape 3/16"
Icon09=Print 8x11 Landscape
A09=^:^S5^S4^8x11 3_16 Landscape.dps$^F0^

Hint10=8x11 Landscape 1/8"
Icon10=Print 8x11 Landscape
A10=^:^S5^S4^8x11 1_8 Landscape.dps$^F0^

// 11 Line Break

Hint12=8x11 Portrait 1"
Icon12=Print 8x11 Portrait
A12=^:^S5^S4^8x11 1 Portrait.dps$^F0^

Hint13=8x11 Portrait 1 1/2"
Icon13=Print 8x11 Portrait
A13=^:^S5^S4^8x11 1-1_2 Portrait.dps$^F0^

Hint14=8x11 Portrait 1/4"
Icon14=Print 8x11 Portrait
A14=^:^S5^S4^8x11 1_4 Portrait.dps$^F0^

Hint15=8x11 Portrait 3/16"
Icon15=Print 8x11 Portrait
A15=^:^S5^S4^8x11 3_16 Portrait.dps$^F0^

Hint16=8x11 Portrait 1/8"
Icon16=Print 8x11 Portrait
A16=^:^S5^S4^8x11 1_8 Portrait.dps$^F0^

// 17 Line Break

Hint18=11x17 Landscape 1/4"
Icon18=Print 11x17 Landscape
A18=^:^S5^S4^11x17 1_4 Landscape.dps$^F0^

Hint19=11x17 Landscape 3/16"
Icon19=Print 11x17 Landscape
A19=^:^S5^S4^11x17 3_16 Landscape.dps$^F0^

Hint20=11x17 Landscape 1/8"
Icon20=Print 11x17 Landscape
A20=^:^S5^S4^11x17 1_8 Landscape.dps$^F0^

// 21 Line Break

Hint22=11x17 Portrait 1/4"
Icon22=Print 11x17 Portrait
A22=^:^S5^S4^11x17 1_4 Portrait.dps$^F0^

Hint23=11x17 Portrait 3/16"
Icon23=Print 11x17 Portrait
A23=^:^S5^S4^11x17 3_16 Portrait.dps$^F0^

Hint24=11x17 Portrait 1/8"
Icon24=Print 11x17 Portrait
A24=^:^S5^S4^11x17 1_8 Portrait.dps$^F0^

// 25 Line Break

Hint26=24x36 Plot 1/4"
Icon26=Print 24x36
A26=^:^S5^S4^24x36 1_4.dps$^F0^

Hint27=24x36 Plot 3/16"
Icon27=Print 24x36
A27=^:^S5^S4^24x36 3_16.dps$^F0^

Hint28=24x36 Plot 1/8"
Icon28=Print 24x36
A28=^:^S5^S4^24x36 1_8.dps$^F0^

// 29 Line Break

Hint30=24x36 Check Plot 1/4"
Icon30=Print 24x36 Check
A30=^:^S5^S4^24x36 1_4 11x17.dps$^F0^

Hint31=24x36 Check Plot 3/16"
Icon31=Print 24x36 Check
A31=^:^S5^S4^24x36 3_16 11x17.dps$^F0^

Hint32=24x36 Check Plot 1/8"
Icon32=Print 24x36 Check
A32=^:^S5^S4^24x36 1_8 11x17.dps$^F0^

// 33 Line Break

Hint34=30x42 Plot 1/4"
Icon34=Print 30x42
A34=^:^S5^S4^30x42 1_4.dps$^F0^

Hint35=30x42 Plot 3/16"
Icon35=Print 30x42
A35=^:^S5^S4^30x42 3_16.dps$^F0^

Hint36=30x42 Plot 1/8"
Icon36=Print 30x42
A36=^:^S5^S4^30x42 1_8.dps$^F0^

// 37 Line Break

Hint38=30x42 Check Plot 1/4"
Icon38=Print 30x42 Check
A38=^:^S5^S4^30x42 1_4 11x17.dps$^F0^

Hint39=30x42 Check Plot 3/16"
Icon39=Print 30x42 Check
A39=^:^S5^S4^30x42 3_16 11x17.dps$^F0^

Hint40=30x42 Check Plot 1/8"
Icon40=Print 30x42 Check
A40=^:^S5^S4^30x42 1_8 11x17.dps$^F0^

[Mark F. Madura]

In the Print / Plot menu, there are two options...

S3 Save Settings
S4 Load Settings

If you configure your printer then select Save Settings, you can save them to a .DPS file.

In DCADWIN.INI the [Printer] section has a key, Settings Auto Load. If you set this to your new printer settings file, it will be loaded automatically.

Settings Auto Load=MyNewPrinter.dps

Printer Settings files are located in C:\DataCAD 17\Support Files\Plotter Settings by default.

This might get you what you want.

MFM

In DCADWIN.INI the [Printer] section has a key, Settings Auto Load. If you set this to your new printer settings file, it will be loaded automatically.

Whaaaa? Cool, I missed that little nugget.

Mark - with this setting I'm assuming that if the file uses a different paper size than what you're using in the INI file you'll still have to change the paper size, right?

[Mark F. Madura]

Here's the contents of my Printer Settings file:

Code: Select all[Printer]
LastX=0
LastY=0
Last Printer=Canon MF4570dn
Last Check Printer=Canon MF4570dn
Last Paper Size=0
Last Check Printer Paper Size=0
Last Plot Scale=10
Last Rotation=FALSE
Last Check Printer Rotation=FALSE
Last Custom Paper Width=2692.4
Last Custom Paper Length=2057.4
Last FitTo=0
Last Factor=100
Last Pen Table=dcadwin.dpf
Last Layout Rotated=FALSE
Last Rotated=FALSE
Last Rotation Angle=1.5707963267949
Last Rotation CenterX=0
Last Rotation CenterY=0
Last Rotation CenterZ=0
Use Imperial Units=1

The paper size is an index into the list of available paper sizes.

Years ago I created printer (plotter) settings files for each paper size, orientation, and plot scale for each plotter/printer we use. I then created icons for each one and set up a context tool bar that pops up when you enter the plotter menu. So it is just a matter of picking the correct icon from the drop down menu and then laying out the plot and plotting. It took a bit of work to set it all up but now it is a simple click or two to plot to any plotter at any size and scale.

Great, thanks so much for the replies!

Mark, your suggestion is exactly what I'm looking for. Do you know if there's a way to select a previously used scale size instead of inputting a value of 10 for example? Something like this: Last Plot Scale= Previously Selected.

And a big thanks to Josh. That's definitely something to I'd like to implement with future drawings.

[Mark F. Madura]

I don't think so, but you could try leaving the Last Plot Scale key blank (i.e., Last Plot Scale= ) and see if DataCAD initializes it with the default value or the drawing's current value.