People seem to pick up the bad habits and not the good habits.  Some get the good habits and define the bad ones that they do not want to mimic.  Which ones are you passing on to others – the good or the bad?

What defines a bad habit?  Is is just something that you like doing that others cannot see the productivity in?  Is it the old way of doing things that is not wrong, just “older” than some of the new methods?  Is a bad habit wrong if it gets the job done?  When do bad habits move from just annoying to being productivity killers?

I have learned a few things along the road of CAD and have jettisoned some bad habits as well as picked up good ones.  My bad habits, as defined by you, may differ from my definitions.  Using outdated dialog boxes or avoiding the ribbon – bad habit or dangerous?  Using the command line in place of the a screen menu – bad habit or productivity drain.

I have specific ways of getting my job done in CAD.  I learned them from others, or tutorials or books or screen casts or wherever.   I have settled into doing things a specific way and it may differ from your work patterns.  I think I am being efficient and you may think I am missing the point.  Either way, we both get the job done and the product meets the CAD Standard.  So we are all good – correct?  My way or your way does not matter as long as we produce the output needed.

If it we on a construction site, I could say that using a screwdriver as a chisel is not acceptable.  Using a hammer to drive in a screw might force the screw head to be level with the wood surface, but it might not hold for long.  But who is to say that some CAD Habits are bad and some are good.

Let me take a stab at it…

When do CAD Habits become Bad Habits?

When they impact others in a negative way.

You may be very comfortable having layer names like Front1, Front2, Wall2, A25, A26 or whatever.  I have seen people name their layers after their kids or dog or whatever, thinking that they are temporary and will be changed later but never come back to change them.  When someone else looks at the file, they cannot figure it our and spend time renaming the layer to be something standard.  You have moved into the bad habit zone.

When they cause files to become corrupt.

Bad hatch patterning, multiple dimension overrides, creating in-place linestyles, fancy xref rotation, attachments from nowhere, and on and on.  Compounding creative creations can cause conundrums.  When you are focused too much on the look of an object and fail to think of the method of creation, it becomes a bad habit.

When a file cannot be output by everyone (only you can get it right).

If you are in the habit of adjusting your personal pentable to get perfect plots then that is a bad habit.  Making fine tuned pentables that may only work on your machine or your office or your hardware impacts the next person down the line.  Don’t do it.  Break the habit.

There may be more that I have not thought of yet, but you get the picture.  Generally when it hurts someone else – it is a bad habit.  even if others are not impacted – it still might be a bad habit.  Think before you act.

Specify Plot Offset Relative To

Specifies whether the offset of the plot area is from the lower-left corner of the printable area or from the edge of the paper (PLOTOFFSET system variable).  Depending on your plotter you may have to fiddle with these setting.

Printable Area
Specifies that the plot offset is relative to the printable area.

Edge of Paper
Specifies that the plot offset is relative to the edge of the paper.

Plot Stamp Settings

Opens the Plot Stamp dialog box.  So much here that it will need to be another post at some  point.

NOTE:  Most people don’t use this plotstamp any longer. They use RTEXT with Diesel or more recently – FIELDS.

Plot Style Table Settings

Opens the Plot Style Table Settings dialog box.

The first option is to either leave the Paper Space size as set int he drawing or to set it to the plotter sizes.  I keep it as the Drawing defines it.  I may use the plot device if I get files from others.  You will get a warning if the system cannot plot at the Paper size selected for that plotter, but you can turn that off by setting PAPERUPDATE to 0 (zero).

System printer spool alerts let you turn on notifications.  You can set it yo tell you everything and also log it to telling you nothing and logging nothing.  You can keep it turned on,but I would turn off the logging unless you are having trouble or need to track plots.  Most people get annoyed with alerts and turn it off altogether.

OLE plot quality – determines the quality of plotted OLE objects. The options are Monochrome, Low Graphics, High Graphics, and Automatically Select. Not much use for this if you are not using OLE embeds.

Use OLE Application When Plotting OLE Objects

Launches the application used to create the OLE object when plotting a drawing with OLE objects. You can use this option to optimize the quality of plotted OLE objects. This setting is saved in the drawing. IF you are getting bad plots then you may want to turn this on.

Hide System Printer

By default AutoCAD shows you every last plotter that it can find. If you are on a network, then the list can get long. You can shorten it a little by clicking this box. It controls whether Windows system printers are displayed in the Plot and Page Setup dialog boxes. It does not hide Windows system printers that have been configured using the Add-a-Plotter wizard.

You can also control the size of the list of devices in the Plot and Page Setup dialog boxes by moving a device’s PC3 file out of the Plotters folder and its sub-folders. I am not sure if it still does it, but prior releases check every plotter in the list to see if they are still good to go. If it takes you a long time to open the plot dialog – look to see how many devices it find. Get the list as short as possible.

Now we move into the area of Plotting and Publishing.

Here you can set the default settings for new files, Plot to file settings, Auto Publish and Background processing options.  General Plot options are set related to drivers, plot style tables, output devices and more.

This one box can save you so many headaches if you get it right.

You can set the default output device from the drop down list of available devices.  This really only effects drawing that have not been opened or saved in 2000 format and beyond.  This dialog will find any PCS files or setups found on your search path or default system printers.

You could set the next radio button to allow AutoCAD to use the last successful plot setting override what is in the file.

The Add or Configure Plotters button takes you to the new plotter setup process.

Lastly – the Plot to file location can be set.  Make sure you know where these files are being created. You could change this to the Desktop.  I would avoid a network location.

Turn both of these on.

There are two options here:

Plotting - setting this one to on by checking the box will enable background processing for the PLOT command.

Publishing - setting this one to on by checking the box will enable background processing for the PUBLISH command.

When background plotting is enabled, an icon will display in the lower right corner of AutoCAD.

There are options that are enabled when you right click on the icon.  Right-click any of the plot and publish icons in the tray on the right side of the status bar. The icon changes depending on what is happening in the background.

A plot or publish job is currently being processed in the background

A plotting details report is available. No errors and warnings occurred.

A plotting details report is available. Errors and warnings occurred.

When your process is running you might see a dialog box like below.

When the process is complete – you will be notified – mine obviously had troubles

Plot and publish log file – turn it off – you most likely will never need this.

If you did create a log it would include:

• Job ID
• Job name
• Sheet set name
• Category name
• Date and time started and completed
• Sheet name
• Full file path
• Selected layout name
• Page setup name
• Named page setup path
• Device name
• Paper size name
• Final status

If you do create a file – it will be located in the location set on the Files tab of the Dialog box.

You can save one big giant file that is appended to as you create new plots – or check the other box and get one file per process job.  (Not one per file, but one per job)

It creates a CSV file that can be opened in Excel.

Here is an example (not in Excel)

Checking the Automatic Publish radio button will publish DWF or DWFx or PDF files upon your selected action.  So you can set AutoCAD to create DWF or PDF files when you save or close a file.

This may be overkill for most of you.  Creating a DWF or PDF every time you close a file may be overdone.

When you select the Setting button you get the following:

This dialog box contains the following options:

Auto-Publish Options

Specifies where DWF or PDF files are saved when you publish drawing sheets.

Publish on – Specifies when the publishing takes place. You have several options here.

Save (Publishes when the drawing is saved)
Close (Publishes when the drawing is closed)
Prompt on Save (Prompt when the drawing is saved)
Prompt on Close (Prompt when the drawing is closed)

If you select the Prompt you get a dialog popup like this:

Location - Specifies a directory where exported files are saved when you publish drawings by selecting the following options in the list.  This is not set in the Files Tab of Options.

Click the [...] button to specify a new location to save the published drawings.

Include – Specifies whether to publish the model, the layouts or both the model and layouts when you publish drawings.

General DWF/PDF options

Specifies options for creating a single-sheet or multi-sheet DWF, DWFx, and PDF files.

File Format – Specifies whether the DWG should be published as a DWF, DWFx, or PDF file.

What is DWFx?  DWFX is an Autodesk DWF XPS Document. Autodesk has teamed with Microsoft to seamlessly integrate DWF technology with Windows Vista using the XML Paper Specification (XPS). DWFx files can be opened directly within Microsoft`s XPS Viewer, which is automatically installed with Microsoft Vista, bundled with .NET 3.0, and is available as an optional download for Windows XP users.

Type – Specifies that a single-sheet or a multi-sheet is generated for all the sheets listed in the Publish dialog box.

Layer Information – Specifies whether layer information is included in the published DWF, DWFx, or PDF file.

Note: Layer information for 3D DWF entries does not get published.

Merge Control – Specifies whether overlapping lines overwrite (the top line hides the bottom line) or merge (the colors of the lines blend together).

DWF Data Options

Lists and allows you to specify the data that you can optionally include in the published file.

Password Protection
Specifies options for protecting DWF, DWFx, or PDF files with passwords.

Block Information
Specifies whether block property and attribute information is included in the published DWF, DWFx, or PDF files.

Block Template File
Allows you to create a new block template (DXE) file, edit an existing block template file, or use the settings of a previously created block template file.  This only becomes available when you set Block Info to Include.

Demand loading continues with ObjectARX Application info:

Here is the definitions from the AutoCAD Help files:

• Disable Load on Demand: Turns off demand-loading.
• Custom Object Detect: Demand-loads the source application when you open a drawing that contains custom objects. This setting does not demand-load the application when you invoke one of the application’s commands.
• Command Invoke: Demand-loads the source application when you invoke one of the application’s commands. This setting does not demand-load the application when you open a drawing that contains custom objects.
• Object Detect and Command Invoke: Demand-loads the source application when you open a drawing that contains custom objects or when you invoke one of the application’s commands.

I suggest you set it to the last one on the list.

Proxy image display is also controlled here.

A proxy is created when you open a drawing containing custom objects created by an application that you may not have. A proxy is also created when you issue a command that unloads a custom object’s parent application.

Turn on these settings as shown above and set the dialog box to display.