Printing help

Hello, I am new to the site.

I have been using microStation V8i  since august of 2010 and have conformed to the typical usage of my office. I am not key on the way we go about printing pages because it takes more time then it should. The current process is to create a border in a separate DGN file and reference it into place and crop the section we want to print and file save as. The problem with this is we have hundreds of files with one sheet cropped to be printed from the one alignment file, then we add each file to the print organizer and define the border and print. If what I am saying makes sense then you can see how opening DGN after DGN to make simple changes and reprinting it all is very time consuming.

My second printing process is to create a separate border as before and create an array of 50+ borders and reference it into the main file and copy/paste the sections into place and set a fence for each page and print separately.

 

Some of the key issues that might help in answering this is, each border in the array has information that needs to change, such as elevation heights and center line positions as a grid in the background to place the drawings on top of. So it is easier to create the array and make changes to one, then copy/paste the changes into the correct borders.

I was trained on autodesk autocad and Revit BIM and what I am used to, is to create a template/border as a separate page within the file and scale the view within the template to what I want to print and be able to create several within the one file.

So basically what I am getting after, is there a way to make a border/template view within the main file and select a view port to show what I want to print? and is it possible to have 100+ borders/templates within the one file/alignment with a defined printing area that I can select the view I want to print and make changes without having to open different files.

Any help/suggestions/ideas/or other ways to go about this would be very helpful. Also seeing as how I am somewhat new to this, detailed responses are very welcome.

Happy holidays

-Tom

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  • If each of your borders have a block shape to represent the fence, then yes it is possible. You would set Print Organizer to find these shapes and use them as fences for the plot. The shapes should be ordered (front - back )in the file such that the order found in the file would represent the plotting order. I have created printers with only one paper/form size each defined in the pltcfg; this is to allow selection of paper size and printer with one selection. I have my pltcfg files set to maximize the print area to the full page/form size; this will automatically set my plot scale for every sheet.

  • This is similar to what how we were doing it in each file, we have a shape property set up but it is in the reference file. When I tried it how you suggested I still could not get it. After I add the file to create a print definition, I select manually specified options, it opens to Fence tab, clicked define from shape, I then put in the level and attributes, under search on the left i unclick master model because the Border level is in the reference file, it then prompts me to enter references? also Create one print definition form first or each shape? i then went to Main tab, changed print area to fence and other options like paper size...etc. once I have done this, it searches, fines a model in Layout1 and my print area changes to view, not fence. do I need to merge my referenced border file into the master?

  • Hi Tom,

    Don't merge the border in and leave both boxes ticked, it shouldn't make any difference as long as the attributes for your shape are unique compared to the other data in reference attachment. If you have many instances of border's being referenced in, then select create one print definition for each matching shape. Set the remaining print settings and you should find the print organiser populates with each instance of the shape around each border.

Reply
  • Hi Tom,

    Don't merge the border in and leave both boxes ticked, it shouldn't make any difference as long as the attributes for your shape are unique compared to the other data in reference attachment. If you have many instances of border's being referenced in, then select create one print definition for each matching shape. Set the remaining print settings and you should find the print organiser populates with each instance of the shape around each border.

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