Printing Guide
Printing Guide
Printing Guide

Preparing to create printed output

Prior to printing your design, you first have to choose the type of printer. Having selected the printer, you then need to choose the page size and specify the layout of the printed output on the selected page.

Page setup criteria

Choices for page sizes are determined by the type of printer that you select. To set up the page for your printed output you have to:

Selecting a printer

MicroStation supplies driver files for most popular printers, stored in the “…/Workspace/system/plotdrv” directory. One of these drivers, “printer.plt”, is used specifically to interface with a Windows System printer. You should use this driver to print to the Windows system printer. Where a number of networked printers are available, “printer.plt” by default prints to the default Windows printer. You can, however, select another of the networked printers (see To interactively select a networked printer other than the Windows default, below).
To select a printer
  1. In the Print dialog box, click the Select Printer Driver icon.
    or
    From the Print dialog box´s File menu, choose Select Bentley Driver.

    The Select Printer Driver File dialog box opens.

  2. Select the new printer driver.

  3. Click OK.
    The Select Printer Driver File dialog box closes. If the Print Preview is displayed, it updates to preview the printed output from the new printer.

To select the Windows system default printer
  1. In the Print dialog box, from the Printer and Paper Size option menu, choose Windows Printer.
    The printer driver “printer.plt” is chosen, and its name, along with the name of the default Windows printer, appears in the title bar of Print dialog box.

Where necessary, you can configure your system to select another printer to be your default Windows printer for printing from MicroStation. See Setting a new default Windows system printer.)

To interactively select a networked printer other than the Windows default
  1. Follow the previous procedure to select the Windows printer.

  2. In the Print dialog box´s Printer and Paper Size section, click the Configure Windows Printer icon.

    The system Print dialog box opens.

  3. From the Printer Name option menu, choose the required printer.

  4. Click OK.
    The system Print dialog box closes. In the title bar of the Print dialog box, the default Windows printer is changed to the chosen printer. Still “printer.plt” is the printer driver file.

Setting print attributes

You can change aspects of the printed output's default appearance via the Print Attributes dialog box. This dialog box opens when you click the Print Attributes icon, or when you choose Settings > Print Attributes, in the Print dialog box. Check boxes in the Print Attributes dialog box let you vary the relevant settings for printing purposes. Additionally, you can turn on/off the display of the Fence Boundary and/or the default Print Border for your printer output.

When you turn on:

Additionally, when you turn on Print Border, you can add text in the Border Comment field. This appears in the label outside the border and can include configuration variable references, which are expanded in the printed output. For example, if the configuration variable USER was defined as “John Smith” and you keyed in the description “User=$(USER),” the printed output would expand to “User=John Smith” in the printed output.

To add a border and description
  1. In the Print dialog box´s icon bar, click the Print Attributes icon.
    or
    From the Print dialog box´s Settings menu, choose Print Attributes.

    The Print Attributes dialog box opens.

  2. Turn on Print Border.

  3. (Optional) In the Border Comment field, key in a comment (such as Office Plan).

  4. Click OK.
    The Print Attributes dialog box closes.

    Example printed output showing the border, file information, and Border Comment.

      

Setting the page size and orientation

Most printer drivers have a choice of page sizes. For example, the “ps650c.plt” printer driver has page sizes A, B, C, D and E for the English configuration. For the Metric configuration, it has page sizes A0, A1, A2, A3 and A4. The orientation of the printed output also may be set to Portrait or Landscape.

On some printers, output is not properly generated unless the page size specified is the same as, or smaller than, the actual size of the paper loaded in the printer.
To define the page setup for the printed output
  1. In the Print and Paper Size section of the Print dialog box, choose the required sheet size from the Paper menu.

  2. Turn on Portrait or Landscape orientation as required.

  3. (Optional) In the X and Y fields of the Print and Paper Size section, key in new values for the Paper size.

These X and Y fields are not editable when you use the Windows Printer.

Print layout criteria

Using settings in the Print Size/Scale and Print Position sections of the Print dialog box, you can set the drawing dimensions or scale to what is required, plus position the print on the sheet.

Using these settings you can:

Setting the Height or Width of the printed output

When you first open the Print dialog box, the printed output is maximized on the selected page. That is, either its width (X) or height (Y) is scaled to match that of the selected page with the aspect ratio determining the remaining dimension. Within the limits of the selected page size and, if specified, the X Origin and Y Origin, you can set the Scale, the X (width) or the Y (height) of your printed output. The settings for the X (width), Y (height), and Scale are interlocked to preserve the aspect ratio of the print area. Changing one setting results in corresponding changes to the others. You cannot, however, set the X, Y, or Scale settings to a figure that would place part of the printed output outside the area of the selected page. In the preview box, the blue rectangle represents the printed area within the (white) page.
To set the height or width
  1. Expand the Print dialog box to its maximum (in the basic Print dialog box, click the Show Preview button to the right of the icon bar and then the Show Details button at the bottom right of the expanded dialog box).
    The Print Size/Scale and Print Position sections now are visible in the Print dialog box.

  2. In the X or Y field, key in the required value.
    The remaining values update to reflect the new setting. In the preview box, the blue rectangle updates to show its new size relative to the sheet size.

Setting the exact scale of the printed output

You can set the scale for your drawing as a ratio of the working units to the printer units. Default printer units are specified in the printer driver´s RESOLUTION record. You can change this by selecting Settings > Units and then choosing new units from the subsequent menu. Options are — IN, FT, MM, CM, DM, M.

Even if your printer is not set up with exactly the same units as your drawing, you can specify the scale of your printed output as a ratio of working units (mu:su) to printer units. Consider, for example, your design file having Master Units of Feet (MU), while your printer´s units are Inches.

To create a 15 feet to the inch scale output would require no changes to the printer's units. You would enter 15 in the Scale field to make the printed output scale 15 ft per in.

To create a 1:20 scale output, you could first change the printer's units to ft, to match the design file's master units. You would then enter 20 in the Scale field. That is, the printed output would be 20ft. per ft or 1:20.

For more complicated scale values, you can use the Scale Assistant to help you set the correct scale. This lets you set the scale as a ration of Paper to Design, or Design to Paper.
Using the Scale Assistant to set the scale of the printed output
  1. If necessary, expand the Print dialog box to display the Print Size/Scale section.

  2. In the Print Size/Scale section, click the Scale Assistant icon to the right of the Scale field.

    The Scale Assistant dialog box opens.

  3. From the Method option menu, choose Design:Paper or Paper:Design.

  4. In the Paper and Design fields, key in the required values from which the scale will be calculated.

  5. Click OK.
    The Scale Assistant dialog box closes and the new scale value appears in the Scale field (in the format of Working Units to Printer units).

Setting the X Origin and/or the Y Origin

When the scaled drawing takes up only a portion of the selected page size, you can position it on the page by adjusting the X Origin and Y Origin settings, in the Print Position section of the Print dialog box. By default, Auto-center is turned on, which ensures that the printed output always is centered in the selected page. If you specify a value for either X Origin or Y Origin, Auto-center is turned off.
To position the printed output on the page
  1. If necessary, expand the Print dialog box to display the Print Position section.

  2. In the X Origin and/or Y Origin fields, key in the new values.
    As the new values are entered and you <Tab> between the fields, the blue rectangle in the preview box of the dialog box updates to display the new location of the printed output in the selected page.
    When a value is entered for either origin, Auto-center is turned off.

Auto-center and Maximize Print Size

By default, when you open the Print dialog box, the printed output is maximized. That is, it is drawn to the largest scale that will fit on the selected paper size. By default, also, Auto-center is turned on and the printed output is centered on the page. When you make adjustments to the margin settings, Auto-center turns off. At any time you can turn on Auto-center to center the printed output, or click the Maximize Print Size icon to maximize the printed output on the page.
To maximize the printed output
  1. In the Print dialog box´s icon bar, click the Maximize Print Size icon.
    or
    From the Print dialog box´s Settings menu, choose Maximize.

Print configuration files

It is not necessary to go through the complete setup procedure each time that you require printed output from a design file. You can create a print configuration file and save it to disk. These specify the design file-specific information required to recreate prints of particular drawings, thus streamlining repetitive printing tasks.

A print configuration file consists of the following entities and settings:

You can use print configuration files on design files other than the one used to create them with one proviso. The print configuration file must have been created from a design file having the same working units as that of the active file.

By default, print configuration files are given the suffix “.ini.” They are ASCII text files that, again by default, are saved in MicroStation´s “Workspace\system\data” directory.

To create a print configuration file
  1. Use the controls in the Print dialog box to distinguish the entity to print and adjust the printing setup as desired.

  2. From the Print dialog box´s Configuration menu, choose Save As.
    The Save Print Configuration File As dialog box opens.

  3. In the Files field, key in the new print configuration filename.
    By default, the extension “.ini” is added to the filename.

  4. Click OK.

To modify the active print configuration file
  1. Use the controls in the Print dialog box to modify the entity to print and/or adjust other print settings as desired.

  2. From the dialog box´s Configuration menu, choose Save.
    The new settings are saved in the active print configuration file.
    When one or more print configuration files have been created for a design file, you can use these to create printed output in the future. This saves having to remember which levels are displayed, the position of the fence or the size of the view, the type of printer and so on.

To open an existing print configuration file
  1. From the Print dialog box´s Configuration menu, choose Open.
    The Select Print Configuration File dialog box opens.

  2. Select the required print configuration file.

  3. Click OK.
    The Select Print Configuration File dialog box closes and the settings for the selected print configuration file are applied to the Print dialog box.