Overview
The Plotting dialog box in MicroStation V8 provides the necessary tools for producing printed output at any time during a project. With MicroStation V8, a newly designed Printing dialog box has been developed. Some of the printing/plotting improvements are:
You can perform all printing/plotting operations from the Print dialog box, which is opened by choosing File>Print. From this dialog box you can:
Figure 1: The Printing/Plotting dialog box in MicroStation V8 (Note: The dialog box is shown fully expanded)
Figure 2: Selecting the Entity (area) to print
Selecting a Printer Driver
MicroStation V8 lets you use two types of printer drivers: Windows Printer or Bentley Driver. An option button lets you toggle between the two types of printers.
Figure 3: Selecting a printer driver
Figure 4: Configure Windows Printer icon
Figure 5 Edit print driver
Settings in the Print dialog box lets you select the sheet size, set the scale for the print, and position the print on the selected sheet.
Figure 6: Selecting Paper size and orientation
Setting the Print Size/Scale
In setting the scale for a print, you are defining the number of design units (in working units) that equate to each paper, or printed output, unit (in printer units).
Figure 7: Setting the Scale
Figure 8: The Scale Assistant Dialog Box
Note: You cannot set the X,Y or Scale settings to a figure that would place part of the printed output outside the printable area of the selected page.
You can set the units that the print dialog will use to display page size, plot size, plot position etc.
Figure 9: Setting Printer Units
Setting the Print Position
When the size of the print is smaller than the selected page size you can control is position on the paper.
Figure 10: Maximize icon
Figure 11: Setting Print Position
The Print dialog box has a self contained preview window (if expanded) and "view design" is checked.
For a larger and resizable print preview, Choose File > Preview or click the Preview icon.
Figure 12: Print preview icon
Figure 13: Resizable print preview window
You may need to synchronize if:
Figure 14: Sync to view icon
Check boxes in the Print Attributes dialog let you vary the relevant settings for printing purposes. This dialog box can be opened by selecting the "Print Attributes" icon, or by selecting the Print dialog box's Settings>Print Attributes menu on the print dialog box.
Figure 15: Print Attributes-Menu selection
Figure 16: Print Attributes icon
When you check the:
Figure 17: Print Attributes dialog box
Print configuration files store design file-specific information required to recreate prints of particular drawings and can streamline repetitive printing tasks. A print configuration file stores the settings for:
Figure 18: Save Print Configuration menu selection
After adjusting the print setup as desired for specific specifications, choose the "Save As" From the Print dialog box's Configuration menu. By default the print configuration files are given the design file name and suffix '.ini". These are ASCII text files that are saved in the "Workspace\system\data directory. To modify a print configuration that has been saved, choose "Open" from the Print dialog box's Configuration menu, select the INI file, make the changes in your print setup and save the print configuration file. Note: When using print configuration files on design files other than the one used to create them, the design file must have the same working units and fenced location as the one that created the print configuration file.
Print resymbolization is the process of changing the characteristics of elements applied to the printed output. MicroStation V8 uses pen tables to control the resymbolization. In summary, a pen table can:
Figure 19: Pen Table menu selection
The Pen Table menu is used to create, attach, edit, detach and import pen tables.
More in-depth information on pen tables, print resymbolization and pen table "text substitution" can be found in the MicroStation V8 documentation and help files.
You can send a plot from MicroStation V8 to another user via E-mail if you are a registered user of Bentley's Viecon.plot service.
Figure 20: Viecon Plot Menu selection
If you have not yet used Viecon.plot with MicroStation V8, choosing one of these menu items opens a dialog box with which you may register to use the service. If you already have an account with the Viecon Web Site, enter the user name and E-mail address you submitted when opening your Viecon account.
Figure 21: Viecon Plot Registration dialog box
If you wish to create a plot using the cgm.plt (plot driver) and do not want to use Viecon plot, select the "Don't Run Viecon Plot" from the Registration dialog box or simply plot using the cgm.plt plot driver.
Figure 22: Viecon Plot dialog box
More information on Viecon plot can be found in the MicroStation V8 documentation and help files and also at www.viecon.com.
The table below can be used as a guide for selecting a correct printer driver.
Target Printer
Plot Driver File
Pros
Cons
Standard large format printer (example manufacturers: HP, OCE, Xerox, ...) that accepts HPGL/2 and HP RTL.
Printer.plt
Allows access to manufacturer specific features. Examples:
Large amounts of vector and raster data can cause printer driver to consume large amounts of host memory and possibly fail. Vector and raster translucency not available.
Hpglrtl.plt
Fast generation of output file by MicroStation. User specification of paper sizes.
No access to manufacturer specific features. Vector and raster translucency not available.
Desktop printer
Allows access to manufacturer specific features
Vector and raster translucency not available.
Ripwin32_gray8.plt
Ripwin32_rgb24.plt
Allows access to features only available via the RIP. (Vector and raster translucency).
May require a large amount of processing time on the host. The amount of data sent to printer can be large. I.e. a design file with 500 vectors will be much larger in raster form than in vector form.
PostScript Output
Pscript.plt
Pscriptc.plt
Epscripm.plt
Epscripc.plt
Allows generation of PostScript for use in documents (EPS) or to be post-processed to PDF. Or can be sent to a PS printer.
For the case of the target being a printer: no access to manufacturer specific features. Vector and raster translucency not available.