Printer Drivers

For each supported printer, MicroStation supplies a sample printer driver — a text file that defines all the necessary information to create a print. The printer driver is used by MicroStation when a print is created. It specifies the following:

• Printer model

• Number of pens the printer can use

• Resolution and units of distance on the printer

• Pen change criteria

• Name, size, offset and number for all paper sizes

• Stroking tolerance for arcs and circles

• Border around printed output and information about border comment

• Pen speeds, accelerations and force where applicable

• Pen to element color or weight mappings

• Spacing between multiple strokes on a weighted line

• Number of strokes generated for each line weight

• The definitions for custom line styles (on printing only)

• The method by which printed output is generated

• Actions to be taken at the start and end of printed output and on pen changes

MicroStation lets you open a printer driver, in a text editor, from within the Print dialog box. By default, this text editor is Notepad, but, you can configure your own using a Workspace configuration variable, which lets you specify any editor. For example, to specify that the editor Wordpad.exe is used to edit printer driver files, you would set the MicroStation configuration variable MS_PLTFILE_EDITOR to the following:

c:\program files\windows nt\accessories\wordpad.exe

All printer driver records and the required syntax are listed in Printer Driver Syntax. The quickest way to create a customized printer driver is to edit one of the sample files supplied with MicroStation. For typical examples, see Customizing printer drivers.

Printer driver format

Printer drivers contain records and associated keywords that can be entered in any order (with a few noted exceptions). The maximum record length is 80 characters, so each line is a record. Where a record requires more than 80 characters, you can place a backslash (\) at the end of the line. This acts as a continuation character, letting you include multiple lines in a single record. For example:

weight_strokes(mm)= (0.25, 0.50, 0.75, 1.00, 1.25, 1.50,\

1.75, 2.00, 2.25, 2.50, 2.75, 3.00, 3.25, 3.50, 3.75,\

4.00, 4.25, 4.50, 4.75, 5.00, 5.25, 5.50, 5.75, 6.00)

is read as a single record although it spans several lines.

Each record specifies one or more of the parameters described in the following sections.

Conventions

These conventions must be followed:

• Records can be in either uppercase or lowercase letters.

• Spaces and tabs before and after data are ignored. All characters to the right of a semicolon are treated as comments and are ignored.

• Blank records and comment-only records are permitted.

Included files

Using the %include statement in your printer driver lets you include another file containing printer driver information. Typically, the include file will not be a complete “.plt” file but instead will contain one or more records that can be shared by other “parent” files. Multiple %include statements may be used to include multiple files. Included files, in turn, may include other files.

Exceptions

A file cannot include itself nor may it include another file more than once. A file cannot include a file that would cause the inclusion process to loop back on itself. For example, if File A includes File B and File B attempts to include File A, then File B's %include statement is ignored.

Example

Take, for example, the style keyword, which supports device-independent units. You could move these definitions out of your printer driver files and place them into a single shared file, which then could be included in all your printer drivers. You then can modify the style definitions for all your printers by editing this one shared file.