GEN19617

Publishing - Create Electronic and Paper Drawing Sets

Using this AutoCAD "Easy Button"
Dale Salazar
Albuquerque, New Mexico USA

Learning Objectives
 Learn how to create a paper drawing set by publishing to a plotter named in each
drawing sheets page setup

 Learn how to create a multi sheet electronic drawing set in DWF or PDF format

 Learn how to create a Drawing Set Description (DSD) file for a collection of
drawings to access using the Publish Tool

 Learn how to add and remove drawings to a Drawing Set Description (DSD) file for
use by the Publish tool

Description
This class will focus on assisting CAD beginners in the use of all aspects of the Publishing Tool
in AutoCAD software to plot multiple drawings in both digital and hard-copy paper formats.
Attendees will learn how to publish an entire sheet set by using individual drawing sheet page
setups. We will develop, save, and edit a listing of drawings using the Drawing Set Descriptions
(DSD) file. Using this AutoCAD “Easy Button” provides an efficient and streamlined alternative
to plotting drawings sheets individually.

Your AU Expert(s)
Dale is a Design Specialist and CAD Manager for a multidiscipline engineering firm based in
Albuquerque, New Mexico. He has over 20 years of experience in the engineering industry with
a focus in Airport Engineering. His CAD Management duties includes the development and
implementation of standards, and assisting users with the firm’s engineering design software,
including AutoCAD Civil3D, AutoCAD Map 3D, AutoCAD Plant 3D, and more. He is a public
speaker and enjoys spending time outdoors in his home state of New Mexico.

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Publishing - The AutoCAD "Easy Button"

When it's time to create a hardcopy paper drawing set, an electronic PDF set, or a DWF set you
can go about it by the tried and true (and sometimes time consuming) method of pulling up each
drawing sheet and using the plot command to create what you need. In many cases this
involves collating drawings as they come out of the printer or combining individual electronic
files into a single file. If you have just a few drawings to plot it's not too difficult, but it seems like
our drawing sets are getting larger and larger and creating these sets can be quite a chore.

Another, and in my opinion, a better option is to use the AutoCAD "Easy Button", the PUBLISH
command! With a little bit of setup you can use this tool to create your drawing sets in an
efficient and less stressful manner. By reducing the potential stress in creating hardcopy or
electronic drawing sets this will allow us to focus our time on the quality of our designs.

Page Setups

Let's start by creating a Page Setup within our drawing sheet.

What in the world is a page setup? Well the definition straight from the AutoCAD help is as
follows:

"Before you plot a drawing, you must specify the settings that determine the appearance and
format of the output. To save time, you can store these settings with the drawing as a named
page setup. A named page setup specifies settings such as the plot area, paper size, and scale,
which determine the appearance of a plotted or published output."

So essentially we are going to print a drawing, without actually printing it. We're just setting it up
for future use.

How to do it

In any AutoCAD platform software you access the page setup manager by clicking the
APPLICATION BUTTON, select PRINT, and then select PAGE SETUP. You can also access
the command by using the ribbon, Output Tab, and select PAGE SETUP MANAGER, or by
simply typing PAGESETUP on the command line.

The Page Setup Manager will display (shown below), and allow you to access the various
commands such as SET CURRENT, NEW, MODIFY, and IMPORT. And depending on what
page setup is selected, a summary of those selections are listed at the bottom of the page setup
manager.

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 PAGE SETUP MANGER

 Let's create a NEW page setup, by selecting the NEW button in the page setup manager
After selection, the New Page Setup Dialouge Box (shown below) will display and allow
us to name our page setup and also to choose a starting point if we choose.

NEW PAGE SETUP

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 It's always advantageous to name your new page setup with a good descriptive name,
instead of accepting the default name of Setup1. After naming, select your choice to
start with some existing settings in the bottom portion of the dialouge box and select the
OK button. Afterwards the Page Setup Dialouge Box will display, which looks almost
identical to the Plot Dialouge Box, with the name you gave it in the upper left hand
corner of the box. In the example below the page setup name I gave was 24 x 36 PDF.

PAGE SETUP DIALOUGE BOX

 At this point you simply go through your settings and select your paper size, plot area,
plot offset, plot style name (pen settings), orientation, and scale, just like if you were
actually printing. Once you have entered all of your page setup settings you can select
the Preview button to make sure it looks correct and then select OK at the bottom of the
box.

 After selecting OK, you will again see your Page Setup Manager Dialouge Box, with your
new page setup listed under page setups. You can select and highlight the newly
created page setup and listed below under the Selected Page Setup Details portion of
this box you will see the details of what you created. If everything looks good, select the
CLOSE button at the bottom.

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 If you made a mistake you can select and highlight your page setup, Right Click and
then select Delete, or Rename, whichever applies. You can also select the MODIFY
button to the right. This will bring you back to the Page Setup Dialouge Box where you
can make the adjustments.

Congratulations! You just created a page setup.

Also listed in the Page Setup Manager Dialouge Box you will find the IMPORT button. This
allows you to IMPORT pre-defined page setups from either a template file (dwt), an AutoCAD
file (dwg), or a Dxf file. This is super handy since many of the drawings we create contain the
same type of settings and page setups. On that note, it would be very helpful to add the most
commonly used page setups to your Template File. By doing this they will be ready to go for the
future drawings you create.

At this point we have a saved Page Setup created and ready to go. Even if we stopped right
here, if would be beneficial because it would allow us to select the saved Page Setup in the Plot
Dialouge box and bypass all of the settings like paper size, scale, etc, thereby speeding up the
Plotting process.

Let's move on to Publishing!

Publish Command

The definition straight from the AutoCAD help is as follows:

Publishing provides a streamlined alternative to plotting multiple drawings by providing

compressed representations of drawings in a file that is easy to view and distribute.
An electronic drawing set is the digital equivalent of a set of plotted drawings. You create an
electronic drawing set by publishing drawings to a DWF, DWFx, or PDF file.

How to do it

In any AutoCAD platform software you access the Publish Dialouge Box by clicking the
APPLICATION BUTTON, select PUBLISH or BATCH PLOT. You can also access the command
by using the Ribbon, Output Tab, and select BATCH PLOT, or by simply typing PUBLISH or
BATCHPLOT on the command line.

Autodesk has left the older name of Batch Plot in the program but it's synonymous with the
Publish command. After launching the command, the Publish Dialouge Box (shown on the next
page) will be displayed.

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 PUBLISH DIALOUGE BOX

We will first very briefly identify the various portions of this command by referencing the Red
Keyed Notes shown above, and then afterwards we will go through a typical Publishing
Operation. The Numbered items below refer to the numbered keyed notes in the graphic shown
above.

1. Sheet List - This is where a saved Drawing Set Description (dsd file) is identified after
loading or saving a group of sheets.

2. Publish To - This is where you tell AutoCAD if you are printing to plotter named in your page
setups, PDF, DWF, or DWFX.

3. Sheets - This is where the individual drawing sheets are listed after adding them to the
listing.

4. Add and Remove Sheets - Use these buttons to add new sheets to the listing, or to remove
an existing sheet that is shown.

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5. Move Sheets - Use these buttons to reorder the listing of sheets to get them collated.

6. Preview - This will show you an example of what you will get with the current settings.

7. Publish Options Information - This area of the dialouge box tells AutoCAD where to place the
file or files after publishing to PDF, DWF, or DWFX.

8. Publish Options - When publishing to a file, this is where you access some additional related
options like quality, etc.

9. Page Setup - After adding a drawing sheet to publish, the page setup(s) for that particular
drawing sheet can be selected here. You also have the option to import a page setup.

10. Selected Sheet Details - After selecting and highlighting a drawing sheet that has been
added, the details for that sheet are shown here. (Note: This portion of the dialouge box is only
visible if the Hide Details/Show Details selection arrow at the lower left hand corner is selected)

11. Copies and Precision - Select the number of copies and the PDF, DWF precision when
publishing to a file.

12. Publish in background - This selection button tells the Publish command to publish in the
background, thereby allowing you to continue working during the publish operation. Conversely
if left unselected you will see the opening and closing of files during the publish operation and
the program will be unavailable throughout the duration.

13. Publishing Order - This will toggle the publishing operation from the shown default order to
the reverse order. This is only available when publishing to a plotter named in page setup.

14. Publish - Last but not Least this button starts the Publish Operation.

Let's use the Publish command and create an electronic multi sheet
drawing set!

One of the first things that you want to do before publishing to either a printer/plotter named in a
page setup or to an electronic drawing set is to save any drawings that you may have been
working on. If you work in a multi-user office environment and are responsible for creating the
sheets across disciplines make sure your team members save any drawings they may be
working on. This will ensure you publish the most current of drawings and will allow you to save
your listing of sheets for future use as a DSD file. We will talk about this a little later in the
document.

 After saving any unsaved changes, go ahead and launch the PUBLISH command.

 The Publish Dialouge Box will open and depending on what drawings, if any, are open at
the time and if you have the "Automatically Load all Open Drawings" box (Right above
Keyed Note #4) selected, a listing of drawing files/sheets will appear in the larger main
area of the box (Keyed Note #3).

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 Let's start from the beginning with an empty listing of sheets so for now, go ahead and
select all of the drawings listed in this area and remove them from the listing. You can do
this by highlighting all of the sheets and then selecting the box with the little RED MINUS
SIGN (Keyed Note #4). You can also select the delete key on the keyboard, or right click
on the listing of highlighted sheets and select remove or remove all.

 Now let's add the sheets you want to publish to the listing by selecting the box with the
GREEN PLUS SIGN (Keyed Note #4). A selection box will come up and you can select
your drawing file(s). To select multiple files, use your Ctrl and/or Shift keys. In the
graphic shown below, I selected eight (8) files and at the bottom of the box I selected to
include the Layouts for each drawing, which excludes the Model. You also have the
option to select Model, and Model and Layout. I also selected the "Prefix sheet title with
file name" to help me stay organized. When you're done click the SELECT button on the
right hand side of the box.

SELECT DRAWINGS DIALOUGE BOX

 The drawing files/sheets are now added to the Publish Dialouge Box and are ready for
you to organize them. They are typically added to the listing numerically and
alphabetically, and you will notice if you have multiple layouts on the drawing sheet all of
those layouts are added to the list. Unused layouts will have to be removed from the
listing if you don’t want blank drawings to be published. (Tip: If you anticipate using the

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 Publishing command on your project you may want to take the time to delete unused
Layouts from your individual drawing sheets).

 Next we want to organize the listing of sheets by selecting and highlighting individual
files/sheets and using the Add/Remove sheet buttons (Keyed Note #4) and Move Sheet
Up/Down buttons (Keyed Note #5). You can also "right click" on the selected and
highlighted sheets to access the same commands, or simply "drag and drop" to move
the sheets into the proper order.

 Now that are sheets have been organized in the proper order we are ready to tell
AutoCAD what to publish to. Select the Publish to box (Keyed Note #2) and tell
AutoCAD if you are publishing to the plotter named in the page setup (Which may be a
hardcopy plotter or an electronic file), a PDF, DWF, or DWFx. The process is pretty
much the same for either DWF or PDF so for this example let's go ahead and select
PDF.

 After selecting PDF in the Publish to box, a PDF Preset box will now be accessible
directly below the Publish To box which allows you to select your PDF printer of choice.
On the right side of the publish dialouge box, the Publish Options (Keyed Notes #7 and
#8) will now be accessible and visible. Select the Publish Options box (Keyed Note #8)
which will allow you to select where your PDF file will be saved to, if it will be individual
PDF files or a Multi-Sheet file, the dpi quality of the file, and if any data like layer
information will be included in the resulting PDF file(s). Go ahead and make any
adjustments you need to make and select OK at the bottom of this box.

 Next take a look at the settings in the bottom portion of the Publish Dialouge Box (Keyed
Notes #10 to 13) to verify and make any appropriate adjustments. You can also select
an individual sheet from the listing and select the Preview button (Keyed Note #6) to get
a preview of individual sheets prior to running the Publish command.
NOTE: Since we are selecting a preset choice of PDF, AutoCAD is using this override
along with the current plot size and scale that is specified in the current page setup! This
is true even if the current setup is to a hardcopy plotter. This can at times be problematic
and perhaps a better choice is to create a Page Setup with the correct settings and
Publish using the saved page setup. We will go through this process later in this
document.

 The last item to check is the Publish in background button (Keyed Note #12). This
selection button tells the Publish command to publish in the background, thereby
allowing you to continue working during the publish operation. Conversely if left
unselected you will see the opening and closing of files during the publish operation and
the program will be unavailable throughout the duration. For this example let's leave it
unchecked.

 At this point we can go ahead and save our sheet listing which will include all of our
setting choices, including the order of sheets by selecting the Save Sheet List button

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 Located next to the Sheet List (Keyed Note #1). The Save List as Dialouge box will
display asking for the location of where your Drawing Set Description (dsd) file should
reside. Go ahead and give it a descriptive name and save the file somewhere, usually
the same location as your DWG files so you can find it next time. After doing so you will
notice that the file is now displayed in the Sheet List (Keyed Note #1).
NOTE: If you or one of your coworkers has opened a drawing file contained in your
listing of sheets and made changes, the dreaded Cannot save the file dialouge box
(shown below) will display. At that point you will need to save changes and start over or
just continue without saving.

OUTPUT - UNSAVED CHANGES DIALOUGE BOX

 Ok I think we're ready! Go ahead and cross your fingers and select the PUBLISH button
(Keyed Note #14) at the bottom of this box!

 Since we did not select the Publish in Background button (Keyed Note #12), AutoCAD
will open and close each sheet in the Publish listing and create the PDF file. Depending
on how large your publish job is, it may take a little while (This may be a good time to
grab a coffee ). If you did select the Publish in Background button then it will do the
publishing in the background allowing you to continue working.

 When the publish job has been completed, your PDF file is saved to the location you
specified and you will return to your drawing that you had open when you initiated the
command.

 Congratulations you just created a PDF(s) using the Publish Command!

Like I mentioned earlier since we selected the preset, Publish to, option of a PDF (Keyed Note
#2), AutoCAD will use the current page setup in choosing a page size and scale, so your results
may not be exactly what you would like them to be. Perhaps a better choice is to run your
publish job using the plotter named in the page setup, which is essentially the same as what we
went through with the exceptions of a few items, Lets go through that process next.

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Publishing to a plotter named in a page setup

In the previous process we went step by step and used the Publish command to create a PDF
file, using the preset PDF option (Keyed Note #2). Another option is to publish by utilizing the
Page Setups we created earlier. Those Page Setups may go to a hardcopy plotter, or perhaps
to an Electronic File like a PDF.

A majority of the steps involved are the same as described above so we will have a brief
description and expand on the items related to using the Page Setup

 After saving any unsaved changes, go ahead and launch the PUBLISH command.

 Add the drawing sheets you would like to publish, organize and arrange to your liking
(Keyed Note #3 to #5)

 In the Publish To button (Keyed Note #2) select Plotter Named In Page Setup

 In the listing of sheets select and highlight the very first sheet on your list. The Page
Setup for that highlighted sheet will display a selectable roll down menu allowing you to
choose a saved page setup. In the example shown below I selected 11X17 PDF as my
choice.

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 PAGE SETUP SELECTION IN PUBLISH DIALOUGE BOX

 At this point you have one Page Setup selected and you can continue to select and
highlight individual sheets and choose a saved page setup for each file. This can be
handy if we are publishing to various multiple devices. However a majority of the time we
will be publishing to same saved Page Setup so another option is to select and highlight
all of your drawing sheets, and then while they are all selected choose the desired page
setup on your first sheet. AutoCAD will apply that same page setup to all of the sheets
on your list. In the example shown below I selected 11X17 PDF in the first sheet and it
was applied to all sheets! This can be a giant time saver in case page setups have not
been saved in all of your sheets.

ALL SELECTED SHEETS APPLIED WITH A SINGLE PAGE SETUP

 Since we are Publishing to a Page Setup that results in an electronic file, verify the
location of the resulting file(s) (Keyed Note #7)

 Verify your settings in the bottom portion of the Publish Dialouge Box (Keyed Notes #10
to 13)

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 If you want save your listing of sheets out as a DSD file (Keyed Note #1). Note: If you
started with a saved Sheet List it will display here and you can either Save As another
file or Save and overwrite the existing if you made changes

 Select the Publish button (Keyed Note #14) and let it go!

Publishing - Final Comments

The Publish Dialouge Box can be a little daunting at first, but with a little practice it can easily be
navigated and put to use on your projects. I would encourage all of you to try it out and make it
part of your workflow.

Now when the boss comes in at the final hour needing those hardcopy or electronic PDF or
DWF files, instead of using the Plot command and individually creating and then collating your
drawings, you can simply use your AutoCAD "Easy Button", the Publish Command!

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