Printing Issues

There are a few ways to set a pen table to default every time you want to print.

To begin with, you want to edit your configuration variables to set
MS_PENTABLE equal to the path to wherever you saved your pen tables.

If you always want to use this pen table, you can set the configuration variable MS_PLOTDLG_DEF_PENTABLE equal to the name of your pen table file. You will have the option to choose a different pen table at the time of printing, but this table will always load by default.

You can also edit your PLTCFG file (through the Print dialog under the File menu). Under the "Base Properties" tab, you have a place to enter a "Default Pen Table File Name". This is nice if you have different plot drivers for different applications, or different types of printing jobs.

Here is a pen table that maps all of the standard MicroStation Index colors (0-254) to black, except for colors 223-226 which print to different shades of grey. This way, every regular color prints black unless it is a special color to print grey, and we can use RGB colors if we actually need anything to print in color. We print with using the True Color option (instead of monochrome or grayscale).

Pen_Table_BWgrey.tbl

Since you blanked over the color of your red line, I cannot tell what color (aside from some kind of red) it is so there's no way to troubleshoot that. If it's a color from a color book, it may not respond to your printing in monochrome.

This is a fast reply, but I added the PEN table to my preferences and the red line still appears and my contour lines are still black. (I had to pick monochrome again to make the lines black and white.) What would you look at to correct the issue of not being able to make the contour lines grayscale and make color lines become gray or black? 

Hello Mary, 

The Monochrome part you explained makes sense. We have access to a pen table but have only set the pen once since we thought that is all we needed. Do we have to set it every time you want to print?'

I am going to attach the property settings for that line but I have found nothing wrong with it (at least that is what I think!). The line has its own color and layer, so no, its not ByLayer. I just want to mention again, but this line is from a referenced file, I tried editing the display settings for this line from its original file but nothing really happened. 

Thank you, 

If you set your printing to monochrome, then your contours will not be grey.

I use a pen table to resymbolize my plots so that I can control what is black, what is grey and what might be color.

What color is that single red line? Is it Bylevel, or set for just that element? What is the actual color (Index, named, or RGB)?