Publishing Sheets using the SSM in Autodesk AutoCAD
I am still working on a video file for No Sheet! You can do that with the SSM in AutoCAD, this cold Michigan weather has slowed me down a bit. If you attended Autodesk University 2014 you know I covered Sheet Sets and took it to the lab but was not able to cover all the material in my handout. I would like to review publishing using the SSM in Autodesk AutoCAD using a .dsd (publishing) file. What happens if I want to print some sheets 11 x 17 and the others 22 x 34? In the past I have used subsets and printed those sections at different sizes but let’s not forget about the publish dialog box.
Hint: The beauty of subsets is you can right click those and publish using an override and AutoCAD will just publish those drawings within the subset.
Within the publish dialog box we can create a .dsd (publishing file) and then just load that up and print using that file, similar to a one click on the page setup override. Click on the publish icon as shown below in Figure 1. Then select Publish Dialog Box…
Figure 1: Publish Dialog Box
You will now see all of the sheets in your sheet set in a nice orderly fashion. Change the page setups as shown. HINT: If you do not see your page you will have to import the page setup into the template and/or drawing file.
Figure 2: Publish Dialog Box
Change one as shown in Figure 2 to 22 x 34. You will now be able to publish your drawing set using different sizes. Then save your publish settings file as shown in Figure 3 to your pdf folder for quick access the next time you need to print.
Figure 3: Change a file and save the publish (.dsd) file
Notes About Publishing (from Autodesk Help)
Publishing provides a streamlined alternative to plotting multiple drawings by providing compressed representations of drawings in a file that is easy to view and distribute. An electronic drawing set is the digital equivalent of a set of plotted drawings. You create an electronic drawing set by publishing drawings to a DWF, DWFx, or PDF file.
You can publish an entire sheet set from the Sheet Set Manager. With one click, you can create an electronic drawing set by publishing the sheet set to a single, multi-sheet DWF, DWFx, or PDF file. You can create a paper drawing set by publishing the sheet set to the plotter named in each sheet’s page setup.
Using the Publish dialog box, you can assemble a collection of drawings to publish and save the list as a Drawing Set Descriptions (DSD) file. You can customize this collection of drawings for a specific user, and you can add and remove sheets as a project evolves.
Once you’ve created a list of drawing sheets in the Publish dialog box, you can publish the drawings to any of the following:
- The plotter named in each sheet’s page setup (including drawings that you want to plot to file)
- A single, multi-sheet DWF or DWFx file containing both 2D and 3D content
- A single, multi-sheet PDF file containing 2D content
- Multiple single-sheet DWF or DWFx files containing both 2D and 3D content
- Multiple single-sheet PDF files containing 2D content
- Using 3D DWF publishing, you can create and publish DWF files of your 3D models and view them with Autodesk Design Review.
Attached please find the pdf files from the appendices from No Sheet!
Appendix A: Using the Publish Dialog Box for printing your project
Appendix B: Placing Sheet Views from the Model Tab using the SSM
Appendix C: Archiving a Sheet Set
Appendix D: Sheet Set Fields – The template
Guide to use when creating fields linking to your title block
Have a great week my friends! Sam
