Plotting a PDF with color and grey level

Hello,

I was wondering how to make changes clearer on a PDF print.

Say I do all my revisions on a dedicated revisions level, say level 99, and it is a hot pink color.

Then print the drawing.   

a color plot would be created. 

Then I would like microstation to plot a second duplicate in greyscale, excluding the revisions on level 99 and place that 'on top of' the original PDF.

Preferably this grey layer would default as ' hidden' or 'not shown' by default...

such that when someone is opening the PDF  they will see the full color drawing, and if they are curious about what changed, they can turn on the grey layer to see the hot pink highlighted?

When the drawing is revised next time the drafter would take the revision elements off level 99 and place them on appropriate levels.

is that possible thru print scripting? 

or do i need to reference the design file onto itself and make the reference print in grey and exclude that level?  

is there a better way to do that?

thanks!!

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  • Good Morning Jeremy,

    I don't know if this helps or not, or whether or not I'm telling you what you already know.  If I'm understanding you correctly you would like to:

    1. Create a PDF in color with the Level 99 printing as "hot pink".  This can be done in a pentable.  Regardless of what color Level 99  is in MicroStation using a properly setup pentable will always print it "hot pink".  And use this pentable in cahoots with a pdf printdriver that develops pdf's in layers.

    2. Create a second PDF with the drawing in grayscale.  Use a second pentable with the desired setup and an associated printdriver that develops pdf's in layers.

    3. As far as what is shown by default in the pdf upon opening, I don't know if Adobe or Bluebeam would allow you to save the file with the levels in a certain "state" or not.

    4. As far as your request of "...the drafter would take the revision elements off Level 99..."  Not sure what you're trying to do, since the linework is already in a drawing it should be easy enough to change levels.  If it helps you could reference in the PDF as a Raster to use as reference while you update elements on Level 99?

    Not sure, there are my two cents,

    Happy Holidays and Take Care,

  • ah thanks all...  haha long time listener.. first time poster..

    I guess putting it onto one same PDF page doesn't make sense.

    I've have two page PDF in mind now...

    say I am revising rev 5 to 6.    Rev 6 would be plotted normally on page 1.  on page 2, a grey scale version of rev 5 would be plotted and with the lines added in red or 'hot pink'  on top.   is there a way to have the design history track this and use the 'commit change' as a trigger to tell the a design script how to print this second page?

    just curious.. it would save a lot of time.  I have no idea about any of this!  I am a newbie trying to make life easier  :)

    lots of my drawings a so muddled its hard to read (sorry!  cant change them easily they are 50+  years old history files that were converted multiple times finally to dgn)

  • Morning Jeremy,

    Yeah I can't help you with the 'history track' 'commit change' trigger thing.

    The only thing that I can think of is to have either different dgns with the color linework separated that way or have different levels separating the different colors.  Then use Print Organizer to create a set of plots with the output you want, you can then save the settings of the plot set as a pset file, in case you need to create another set in the future.

    But that is all I've got, sorry,

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  • Morning Jeremy,

    Yeah I can't help you with the 'history track' 'commit change' trigger thing.

    The only thing that I can think of is to have either different dgns with the color linework separated that way or have different levels separating the different colors.  Then use Print Organizer to create a set of plots with the output you want, you can then save the settings of the plot set as a pset file, in case you need to create another set in the future.

    But that is all I've got, sorry,

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