Chapter 14

Using Layouts to Set Up a Print

A design is only as good as your ability to communicate that design with the people building it. Printing, or plotting as it’s called in AutoCAD, is considered by many to be the final phase of that communication process. Preparing a document set can be just as challenging as plotting it. In this chapter, you will set up sheet files in a way that maximizes the potential of layers and external references. You will learn to further automate the management of your drawing sheets by using Sheet Set Manager.

As you work through this and the next chapter, you’ll quickly discover the incredible control you have over nearly every aspect of how a drawing plots. This versatility means you can probably get AutoCAD to plot exactly the way you want it to. However, remembering each of those settings can prove challenging. Consequently, the key to getting consistent plots is to find a way to capture all of those settings in a way that will allow you to reuse them for new drawings in the future.