Creating a print from MicroStation

In simple terms, the steps required to create a print from MicroStation are:

Open the Print dialog box.
Select the print area mode.
Select a printer.
Set the printing parameters, such as sheet size and scale.
(Optional) Preview the print.
Click the Print button.

Central to all these printing operations is the Print dialog box.

Introduction to the Print dialog box

All printing functions can be performed from the Print dialog box. Using the options in this dialog box you can select a printer and adjust various settings that affect printing. Additionally, you can preview the printed output.

To open the Print dialog box

From the File menu, choose Print.
or
Press <CTRL-P>.
The Print dialog box opens.
All options for adjusting printing settings are contained in the menu bar at the top of this dialog box and via the icon bar directly below it. The printer driver, currently selected, displays in the title bar of the dialog box.


The basic Print dialog box.

By default, the printed output is maximized. That is, it is drawn to the largest scale that will fit on the selected paper size. You can see a preview of the printed area, along with the elements in your plot. This appears in an expanded portion of the Print dialog box, which you can display or hide as required.

To expand the Print dialog box to visually check the printed output

In the Print dialog box, click the Show Preview arrow to the right of the icon bar.
The Print dialog box expands to display the print preview window. The blue rectangle represents the size of the printed output on the selected sheet.

To see the part of the drawing that is to be printed, turn on Show Design.


The Print dialog box expanded to show the printing details (visually).

Further expansion of the Print dialog box lets you set the Print Size/Scale and the Print Position on the selected sheet.

To view the Print Size/Scale and Print Position settings

In the expanded dialog box, click the Show Details arrow at bottom right.
The Print dialog box expands to display further printing parameters.


The Print dialog box fully expanded to show all settings.

With both expanded portions of the dialog box visible, you can toggle the display of both together by clicking the Hide/Show Preview arrow.

Selecting the print area mode

When you first open the Print dialog box, the initial print area is determined as follows:

If the active model contains a sheet definition, the print area is obtained from the sheet definition.
If no sheet definition exists, and a fence exists, the fence defines the print area.
If no sheet definition or fence exists, the print area is set to the first open view.

The priority of a sheet definition versus an active fence may be swapped using the configuration variable MS_PLT_AREA_PRIORITY.

If you are not using sheet or fence print area modes, you may define the print view so that it encompasses all the elements in either the master file or the master file and all its references. These are the "Fit Master" and "Fit All" print area modes respectively. The configuration variable MS_PLT_AUTO_FIT_VIEW can be used to instruct the print dialog to automatically select one of the Fit print area modes when the Print dialog box is opened.

You can change the print area mode via the Print option menu in the General Settings section of the Print dialog box.


Selecting the area to print.

Setting the vector output color

Often, it is advantageous to display the vector information in grayscale or monochrome, rather than the element colors. Where you have a color printer, you can quickly set it to print vectors in grayscale or monochrome, using the Vector output setting in the Print dialog box. This lets you choose from:

Monochrome — output is black and white
Grayscale — design file colors are output as grayscale
Color — design file colors are used

When you choose a different output, you can see the result in the preview window.

Selecting a printer

MicroStation lets you work with either of two types of printer drivers, Windows Printer, or Bentley Driver. An option button in the Printer and Paper Size section of the Print dialog box lets you toggle between the two types of printers.

Selecting Windows Printer automatically loads the windows printer driver file (default is “printer.plt”). When you select Bentley Driver then, by default, the Bentley printer driver file that you last used is loaded. Where required, you can select another Bentley Driver. You can, however, use the configuration variable MS_PLOTDLG_DEF_PLTFILE, to define a default printer driver file to be selected each time that the Print dialog box is opened. That is, the defined printer driver file will be selected rather than the printer driver file last used.

To select a Bentley printer driver

In the Printer and Paper Size section of the Print dialog box, click the Select Printer Driver icon.

The Select Printer Driver File dialog box opens.

Choose a printer driver file.

Click OK.
The Select Printer Driver File dialog box closes and the name of the selected printer driver file appears in the title bar of the Print dialog box. The option button displays Bentley Driver.

Printer driver selection guide

You can use the following table as a guide to help you choose the correct Bentley printer driver file.

Output to:	Printer Driver File	Pros	Cons
Standard large format printer, that accepts HPGL/2, HP RTL (such as HP, OCE, Xerox)	printer.plt	Lets you access manufacturer specific features such as: Host based color correction and paper handling (stapling, folding)	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	printer.plt	Lets you access manufacturer specific features.	Vector and raster translucency not available.
	ripwin32_gray8.plt ripwin32_rgb24.plt	Lets you access 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. For example, 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	Lets you generate PostScript for use in documents (EPS), or to be post-processed to PDF, or can be sent to a PostScript printer.	When sending to a printer, no access to manufacturer specific features. Vector and raster translucency not available.
PostScript output	pdf.plt	Lets you directly create PDF documents.

Supported printers

MicroStation´s printing system generates output in formats supported by most printing devices. There are three types of printer driver parameter (.plt) files that are delivered with MicroStation:

generic templates such as “hpgl2.plt,” “pscript.plt” and “epson24.plt.”
customized parameter files such as “hp650c.plt.”
“printer.plt,” which works in conjunction with the System Printer driver provided by the output device´s vendor.

All delivered MicroStation printer drivers reference drivers that create print information in industry-recognized formats (such as HPGL/2, HPGL/RTL, ESC/P, TIF, and CGM). If a specific “.plt” file does not exist for the device that you are using, you may be able to use another existing “.plt” file.

Following is a table showing the printer languages for which sample printer drivers are supplied and the corresponding filenames.

Printer language (driver)	Printer Driver(s)
CGM	cgm.plt
ESC/P	epson24.plt
HP-GL/2	hpgl2.plt, hpljet3.plt, hpljet4.plt, hpljet4v.plt, hpdjet.plt, hp650c.plt, drftprop.plt, novajet2.plt
HPGL/RTL	hpglrtl.plt
PCL	hpljet.plt,hp5xxc.plt, hppcl5.plt
PostScript	epscripc.plt, epscripm.plt, pscript.plt, pscriptc.plt, ps650c.plt, psc650c.plt, pdf.plt
Raster File	jpeg.plt, png.plt, tiff.plt,ripwin32_gray8.plt, ripwin32_rgb24.plt

When you submit a print, its production is based on the specifications in the loaded printer driver.

Setting the printing parameters

Settings in the Print dialog box let you select the sheet size, set the scale for the print, and position the print on the selected sheet.

Setting the paper size and orientation

Using settings in the Printer and Paper section, you can select a pre-defined paper size and define the orientation. Where you are using a Bentley Driver, you can edit the X (width) and Y (height) dimensions of the selected paper size. When you select the Window Printer, these dimensions are not editable. The setting for Orientation lets you choose between Portrait or Landscape.


Printer and Paper Size section of Print dialog box.

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). You can key-in this value in the Scale field, or you can click the Scale Assistant icon and use the Scale Assistant dialog box to define the scale criteria either as Design to Paper, or Paper to Design.

The default scale method may be specified in the workspace configuration using the MS_PLT_SCALE_METHOD configuration variable, with settings:

1 — default scale display is paper units to master units.
2 — default scale display is master units to paper units.

This variable overrides the user preference when the print dialog loads. You may change the preference while working in the dialog, but the configuration value will be used when the print dialog is exited and restarted.

As an alternative to setting the scale for the print, you can set the X (width) and Y (height) dimensions for the print.

Changing the Scale, or either dimension (X or Y), automatically results in changes to the remaining parameters to maintain the aspect ratio of the print.


Print Scale and Size section of Print dialog box.

You cannot set the X or Y print size to values that would place part of the printed output outside the area of the selected page. When a new print scale is specified, however, the behavior depends on the currently selected print area mode.

If the print area mode is view, the print size is adjusted according to the new print scale. Scales that result in print sizes too large for the paper size are not permitted. A view definition is never clipped to accommodate a print scale.
For all other print area modes, the print area is recalculated using the original sheet definition, MicroStation fence, or design fit criteria, and the print size is adjusted according to the new print scale. If the new scale is smaller than the old one, the outer part of the print area may be clipped. If the new scale is larger than the old one, more of the design is included in the print area. The print area is always scaled about its center point.

Setting the printer's units

It is not always the case that the printer's units and the design file units are the same. You can, however, change the printer's units via the Print dialog box.

To change the printer's units

In the Print dialog box, from the Settings menu's Units submenu, choose the new units from — IN, FT, MM, CM, DM, M.
The printer's units change to the new setting. This setting will remain until they are changed again.

Setting the print position

Where the size of the print is smaller than the selected page size, you can control its positioning on the page.

You can turn on Auto-center to center the print on the page.

Alternatively, you can specify the position of the lower left corner of the print, relative to the lower left corner of the page. The X Origin value defines the distance horizontally and the Y Origin setting defines the distance vertically.

Previewing the printed output

Generally, the Print dialog box's self-contained preview window is sufficient for quickly checking the printing parameters. For more accurate previewing, however, you can open a resizable Preview window. This lets you check more thoroughly how the printed output will appear and is useful for checking fine detail , or when checking the effect of a pen table on the print.

To open the Preview window

In the Print dialog box, click the Preview icon.
or
From the File menu, choose Print Preview.

The Preview window opens, displaying the proposed printed output.

(Optional) Click and drag the window borders to resize the window as required.


The resizable Preview window.

Updating from the view

During the setting up process, you may use tools such as Window Area, or Zoom In/Out to redefine the view to be printed. You also may turn levels on and off in the view. After adjusting the view, you must update from the view to ensure that the preview is displaying the new printing region. If you are using the adjustable Preview window, the same procedure applies.

To update the Print dialog box preview from the view

After adjusting the viewing parameters in a view, click the Update from View icon in the Print dialog box.

The preview window in the Print dialog box updates.

To update the Preview window from the view

After adjusting the viewing parameters in a view, click the Update from View icon in either the Print dialog box or the Preview window.

Creating the print

Once you have set up your design to print (via the Print dialog box), you can click the Print icon to create the print. What happens at this stage depends on your system configuration and your selected printer driver. For a standard configuration, with no modifications to printer driver files or configuration variables, the print will either go directly to a printer, or will be saved to disk for later submission to a printer, as follows:

Windows Printer — output is sent directly to the Windows system printer.
Bentley Driver — the Save Print As dialog box opens, to let you specify a name and location for the print to be saved to disk.

For more details on creating prints, see Submitting Printed Output to a Printer.