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We are finding Knockouts (on ParaText over hatches) to be frustratingly inconsistent. They work, until they don't. Then after a lot of poking and prodding - they work again, and then after switching GTV's - they stop working again. Do knockouts have to be "in front" of something to work - or do they just work?

The help manual mentions something about toggling on/of knockout display - where is this done?

Another possible related issue is the WYSIWYG toggle in the Plotter menu - how is that invoked? I have never been clear on this.

To toggle the display of knockouts on, it's under View, Knockouts, KnockoutDisplay. If you want to simply knockout everything and you will not be sending the files to anyone for DWG work, you could turn off Compatibility Mode, but I would not recommend it as you loose a lot of functionality that way. It's worth getting it setup to work how you want with Compatibility Mode On. I made a little video on knockouts that might help. They definitely work as they should, there is just about 3 different ways you can set things up depending on how you want to use them and what your current setup for display and printing is. Are you using WYSIWYG for printing already? We use pen table ordering for our printer output so we setup pen tables with a color called knockout. Then that color is set to pen 11 in this example so it knocks out pens 1-10 when printed. Pens 1-10 are our legacy colors and make up the core our our linework. Then if there is anything we want to always print over the knockouts we set it to one of the colors set to pens 12-16.

Then for display ordering, we usually use normal layer display ordering to set the knockouts on an appropriate layer, usually the last layer, or active layer to be loaded for a GTV. Then we use Move to Front/Back to get the knockouts where they need to be. If you setup symbols with the knockouts setup with their layers properly ordered it helps alot. If you are using WYSIWYG for printing, I would guess that your printed output would be determined by the GTV/MSP layer display ordering but I'm not sure. It's basily the same thing as getting bitmap images to display in the correct order.

I found that is what I had to do with Ptext over a hatch pattern yesterday. Wouldn't KO the hatch pattern on a plot with anything I tinkered with for layer order or front and back settings. But, the KO correctly removed the hatch on the screen. Finally, turned off Compatibility Mode and it then plotted with the hatch getting KO'd on the plot

Thanks guys! I appreciate it.

So, to have a symbol knockout the lines and hatch around it, you have to add a polyline to the symbol and make that a knockout? Because when I make a symbol a knockout - nothing happens.

Thanks Josh - if it only was that easy. We added the polyline, and it works on the first instance - we had to move the layer to the bottom of the list, in order to have it show right.

We then go to the next GTV, which has the same symbol - and it doesn't show right, either on the screen or in the plot preview. In fact, the first shows right on the screen, and in the MSP Sheet view - BUT NOT on the Preview ... The second instance doesn't show right anywhere.

So remind me what do you use for print output? Pen table or WYSIWYG?

We use a Pen Table. How does one even turn on WYSIWYG?

Josh, I will have to refer to this thread to remind myself how this stuff works.

PenSort means that Pens are printing in order 0 to 15, right?

I am confused by some of this: Knockouts are invisible but they cover up stuff "behind" them - AND they have a "color" so if you use a non-printing color (which is what you would use!), then they work on the screen - but not on the paper.

We use Pen 0 - which is the default non-printing Pen - and so the invisible thing is in fact invisible on the paper.

And here's where WYSIWYG comes into play. If it looks correct on screen when you save your GTV/MSP detail, it should print that way too.

Dave

Apparently, the Compatibility Mode keeps dimensions from having Knockouts. What knockouts work in Compatibility Mode?

It should. Are you sure the dimension is on a layer that is after the item being KO'd?