line weights-elevations

[murphj]

I am trying to print a number of elevations onto one sheet as described in Allan Chesey's instructions "printing plans and elevations etc on single pages"
The elevations have very thin line widths and I would like to make them much thicker.
Is there any easy way to do this?

[Allan Chesney]

This method of printing the elevations uses a standard DXF output, as produced in typical plan printing processes. There is no way that I know to increase the line thickness in this type of output - at least not from TFP and I have not heard of it from other plan printing software either. However, there may be some way I do not know about, as I rarely print plans, so I am not that familar with it.

You can turn Line Weights on (Settings/ Programme Settings / Workspace) which will then display the line weights that are allocated in the 2D Appearance (of Wall and other element Properties) and you can turn Print Line Weights on in the Print dialog, but this will only print the line weights of direct plans or added lines - the DXF outputs will not be affected in the print process.  With line weights turned on you could export the elevations as a 2D image (BMP) and import those as a Trace layer, but this will not have the same quality or be as flexible to handle as the proper DXF output.

Sorry not to be much help - hopefully someone else knows some way to alter the DXF output but as this is an AutoCAD standard I suspect it is not possible.

Allan

[Draft Patrick]

Hi  murphj and Allan,

A note regarding DXF--> As a matter of fact DXF is not the Autocad standard, DXF stands for "Drawing Exchange File"--> this format is like a primitive DWG format, where you can see the entities in a graphic format (plans, elevations, etc) or in a text format (Explorer--> right click on the name of a DXF file--> Open with--> Word, Notepad, etc--> you can read the entities) So, in this context, a DXF is a file intended for exchange between different programs

Now, a DXF file can be opened by many CAD like programs (TurboCad, Autocad, etc) or graphic programs (Irfanview (free), Paint Shop Pro, etc)
In a CAD program, you can open the elevation and select each line and change the thickness, layer, color, etc. Some graphic programs allow you to retouch these lines too

There is an additional resource that I like, as a previous step before I print--> Design Review is a free program by Autodesk--> you can open DWG or DXF files and add lines, colors, comments, etc and the print or create a PDF

Hope this helps

Pat

[murphj]

Thanks for your help Allan and Pat
I will try the paint program and the other suggestions.
The elevations look reasonable if I put only two on each page instead of four, and will probably look better when I print to A3 rather than A4 paper

[Allan Chesney]

If you are rinting to A4 I can see it would be a problem - I think you will find on A3 paper it will be fine - A2 better still of course!!

Allan