I finished editing my drawing, and now it's time to set up my different layouts. I'm going to be using the page setup manager to help me define how each layout will appear. Because my submittal package is going to different counties, I'm going to use plot styles to comply with each county's layer standards. Plot styles can be defined using a color table or a standards table. AutoCAD comes with several plot styles already defined. AutoCAD drawings use CTB plot styles by default. You cannot mix and match with one layout using a CTB style and one layout using an STB style. Your drawing can only use one format or another, not both. You can convert a drawing using a CTB plot style to use an STB plot style, and vice versa. The page setup manager is a helpful tool when I'm ready to add some layouts. One of the viewports on the sheet will be used to display all named view. I want to plot that sheet using grayscale, so I'm going to apply a plot style to that sheet. I also will use layer overrides to control the properties of some of my elements in the viewports in order to comply with each county's requirements. I'm going to start working with a layout called kitchen detail. I activate that layout, and right now, it's an empty sheet with just the title block. I want to verify that I'm on the viewport layer before I place my viewport. I always set my viewport layer to No Plot. That way, the viewport boundary is not visible in my plots. I want to create a viewport, so I go to the layout ribbon. I select the rectangular viewport tool from the layout viewports panel on the ribbon. I place the viewport by drawing a rectangle just to opposite corners. I want to assign a named view to this viewport, so I switch to the view ribbon. I double-click inside the viewport to activate model space. I select the named view called kitchen from the view list. I click outside the viewport to return to paper space. I adjust the size of the viewport using the grips. I select the viewport and set the display to locked, so the view doesn't change. I press escape to release the selection. I right-click on the kitchen detail tab and select Page Setup Manager. Then I select modify. I'll set it to print to an Adobe PDF file. I'll set the paper size to tabloid. I'll set the plot style to grayscale.ctb. This will plot this sheet as grayscale. Next, I press preview to see what the layout will look like. It looks fine. So I press exit and press okay. I close the page setup manager. I'm going to switch to the San Francisco County layout. I right-click on the layout tab and select page setup manager, then I select modify. I'll set it to print to an Adobe PDF file. I'll set the paper size to tabloid. I'll set the plot style to sfcpwmano.ctb. This is a plot style I downloaded from the San Francisco County Public Works website. As I said earlier, many county public works departments will provide builders with the plot styles required for submitting building plans. If it's not on their website, just ask someone in the department. They will usually email it to you, or provide you with a link at no charge. To see what the plot style looks like, I can click on the edit icon next to the plot style name. I'll select the table view tab. You see that all the colors are set to plot block. In the case of some colors, convert to grayscale is enabled. The form view is just a different format than the table view. The information is the same. If I look at the color red, the grayscale is turned off. If I look at the color blue, the grayscale is turned on. I press save and close. I'm going to switch to the Alameda County layout. I right-click on the layout tab and select page setup manager. Then I select modify. I'll set it to print to an Adobe PDF file. I'll set the paper size to tabloid. For this layout, I won't select any plot style table. This means the layout will plot based on the layer properties for the viewports on that layout. I press okay. I'm done using page setup manager and plot styles. I want to activate model space in the viewport. To activate model space, I double-click inside the viewport. I can always double-click the status bar to verify that I'm in model space. I'll switch to the home ribbon, and launch the layer properties manager from the layers panel. I'm going to apply some layer overrides to the left viewport. Layer overrides allow you to assign a set of unique display properties for each layout viewport. These settings override the layer properties in the model tab and in other viewports. Each viewport can use different layer properties depending on what you want to see. I'll change the dim layers, VP color to green. I'll change the fixture layers, VP color to cyan. I'll freeze the furniture layer in the viewport. I'll change the wall layers VP color to white, and I'll switch back to paper space. I'm going to activate model space in the right viewport. I'll expand the layer properties manager, and apply some new layer overrides. I'll change the dimensions layer to red. I'll change the furniture layer to green, and the fixture layers to magenta. I double-click outside the viewport to return to paper space. You can compare how the two viewports look with the different layer overrides. Keep in mind, that if any plot styles are applied to a layout, the plot style controls how the plot will appear. Any layer overrides will be ignored, just as the default appearance of the elements are ignored. To remove the layer overrides, I simply select the viewport, right-click, and choose remove viewport overrides for all layers. I'm going to switch to the apartment layout. I want to modify the viewport so it only displays the apartment on the left side of the duplex. I'm going to start by rotating the viewport. I rotate the viewport 90 degrees. I select the rotate tool. I select the viewport. I press enter. I select my base point, and then use my cursor to rotate the viewport 90 degrees. I'm going to enlarge the viewport using the grips. Once the viewport is the correct size, I'm going to double-click inside the viewport to activate model space. I'm going to use zoom window to enlarge the view so it fills the viewport. I return to paper space. I want to modify the viewport boundary so I can focus just on a single apartment unit. I select clip from the ribbon. I select the viewport to be modified. I right-click and select polygonal. I trace around the apartment outline to define my viewport boundary. I'm basically using a polyline to create a polygonal boundary. I can right-click and select close to close the boundary. I can use the grips on the viewport boundary to adjust the viewport shape if needed. To recap, I assigned a named view to a viewport on one of my layouts. I use the page setup manager tool to control how layout would be plotted. I applied plot styles to control how objects would appear in a plot. I applied layer overrides to change the display of some of the elements in a viewport. I customize the size and shape of a viewport boundary using the clip tool as well as the viewport grips.
