Topic Title

Can anyone explain the purpose of Pen Style?
How does it affect plotting and transfer to Autocad if at all?
Is their a way to change the setting globally?
I've always used a rounded end but thinking the square end might be better....no science to that just a gut feel. I've always used a slight overshoot to "fix" my lines...left over from my days with pen and Mylar. Of course all this only shows up as far as I can tell zooming in tight on a PDF file...not seeing any difference in my laser prints.

Robert

The fact that you have not been trampled to death in the stampede of replies to this probably reflects the value of pen styles. I think it has been round since V11 or 12.

As recall it, Pen Style enables you to do two things

1. The pen style is independent of scale. If you use a dashed style applied to a solid line, the spacing is the same, irrespective of the plot scale. This might be useful if you don't know what you are doing.

2. As well as applying a style to a solid line, you can modify other standard linetypes by using different pen styles, e.g. make a "dashed box". I guess you could waste an hour fiddling around with this before you realise what a pointless exercise it is.

I don't understand all the styles, most particularly, why there are three solid line styles. I use overshoot routinely but the difference between round and square ends only becomes manifest with very heavy lines - just the sort of lines you wouldn't overshoot.

I'm guessing this is a cheaply-imported Windows feature, so maybe AutoCad can do the same thing, but it would be wise to test before taking the risk. Best to assess why you would do it in DataCad first...

About the only reason I ever use it is to put property linetype, etc. on curves.

Paul...that a good use for it!

Paul had a nice cheap trick...thanks!

I've run across this in Adobe Illustrator which gives you fine control of the end termination of the line. For physical printing (1/4" and 1/8") scale I'm not seeing a noticeable difference. Large lines for title block borders you could see it and of course zooming in on PDF's it does show up.

For larger boarders I switched to polylines and fills years ago so again this is non factor for me.

More of a curiosity than anything else.

Robert

I have also used pen style to print a line with insul1 linetype as a dashed line though not very often.