• A Step-by-Step Guide for Advanced Pen Table Text Substitution

    The following is concise step-by-step guide to using named expressions with pen table text substitution to access print definition properties that are not available via other means. This includes separate print size X and Y values, and the print rotation. These strings are not available as standard print accounting variables.

    This article applies to MicroStation V8i.

    - Open (or create) a DGN library that…

  • PDF File Size Comparisons

    In this article, I'll show the results of some PDF file size comparisons I performed printing from MicroStation 8.5, 8.9, and 8.11. I'll also compare PDF file sizes produced by MicroStation 8.11 printing to both pdf.pltcfg and the Adobe Acrobat 8 Standard Windows printer driver. You should be able to reproduce these results if you care to.

    In all cases, I printed using the default Untitled workspace and the standard…

  • Print Organizer vs. Batch Print

    What is Print Organizer?

    Print Organizer is the new print set utility delivered with MicroStation V8i. It is intended to improve upon and replace the previous MicroStation print set utility, Batch Print.

    The best source of information about Print Organizer is the product documentation, under 'Working with Complete Designs / Printing / Print Organizer".

    How is Print Organizer different than Batch Print…
  • Tutorial: Automating Printing through Print Styles

    (This article applies to MicroStation V8i)

    In this tutorial, I'm going to demonstrate how to automate some common tasks in both Print Organizer and the single-Print dialog using print styles. This is intended primarily for CAD administrators.

    I'm going to assume a relatively sophisticated workspace environment that makes use of a site-wide design library (site.dgnlib) and project-specific design libraries…

  • Print Text Substitution

    (Portions of this article apply to MicroStation V8i)

    Setting aside the more sophisticated capabilities of ProjectWise InterPlot design scripts and ProjectWise title blocks, there are four main techniques in standard MicroStation to replace design file text at print time. Common reasons for wanting to do this include placing the user name, the design file name, the current date & time, the date & time the design…

  • Printing Rasterized OLE Objects: Performance and PDF File Size

    (This topic applies to MicroStation 8.9 and later)

    Here's the scenario: I start with a design file that contains a single, relatively dense Excel spreadsheet that fills roughly 98% of an ANSI E sheet. I print this same sheet in MicroStation 8.5 and 8.9, in both cases using the pdf.plt printer driver configuration file delivered with MicroStation 8.5, maximized to ANSI E and printing in non-rasterized mode.

  • Tutorial: Including the Date in Print Output File Names

    (This topic applies to MicroStation 8.11 and later.)

    In this article I am going to present a step-by-step approach to including the current date (in the format dd-MM-yy) as a prefix in print output file names produced by both Print Organizer and the single-Print dialog. Note that there are multiple ways of going about this, and what I'm going to show here isn't necessarily the easiest method. However, the technique…

  • Printer Driver Configurations: .pltcfg versus .plt

    In this post I'm going to try to answer some of the commonly asked questions concerning the .pltcfg files that were introduced in MicroStation 8.9.3, and the removal of the default .plt files in MicroStation 8.11.
    To begin with, it's important to understand the difference between a printer driver and a printer driver configuration file.  A printer driver is the executable code within MicroStation that knows how…
  • Paper Sizes in a Windows Printer Driver Configuration File

    One of the most common, perhaps the most common, complaint about printing to a Windows printer driver from MicroStation is the lack of control over paper sizes.  Whereas a Bentley printer driver allows you to define as many paper sizes as you need, and only those you need, with the names and dimensions you want, the Windows printer driver requires you to use only those paper sizes published by the printer driver.
  • Rasterized versus Non-Rasterized Printing

    One of the first questions a newcomer to the MicroStation V8 XM Print dialog asks, if they notice it at all, is "what is that Rasterized checkbox for?" It's not obvious at first, but the Rasterized checkbox is one of the most important controls on the Print dialog, and it's vital to understand its purpose and how its setting affects the print performance and the printed output.

    What is rasterized printing…
  • Pen Table Priority and Troubleshooting Priority Problems

    (This article applies to MicroStation 8.9.4.73 and later.) 

    One of the most significant new features in the MicroStation V8 XM Edition was the introduction of a true 3D graphics display system. This allowed intersecting and overlapping 3D geometry to be displayed and printed accurately, rather than relying on the file order of elements. Unfortunately, this innovation dealt a major blow to the pen table application…