Introduction

With MicroStation you draw your designs at full-size and, when it comes to printing, you decide on the scale to be used. You can specify that a print be created of a view or of the contents of a fence. When preliminary check prints are required, you can simply zoom in to the required area, or place a fence around it. You then print this view or fenced area at the required scale, which can be set via the Print dialog box. For finished scale drawings, however, more planning is needed.

In most cases, printing is required to be standardized for a particular project or discipline. With this in mind, you can set various configuration variables to streamline this process, and to provide the required uniformity of prints.

As a rule, if the Windows printer is selected, printed output is sent directly to the system printer. Alternatively, if a Bentley printer driver is selected, printed output generally is saved to disk. This saved file then can be submitted to the printer at a later date. An exception to this is when the default_outFile record in the printer driver file designates a port name, such as “lpt1” or printer name such as “\\printmanager\laserjet4.” In these cases the printed output, from the modified Bentley printer driver, will be sent directly to the printer.