On Land

BORING!

(Did you know April is national sheet setup month?)

I've modified the drawing area object. Whee! It is simpler, clearer, and just a bit more spacious. It also allows you to disregard the grid in PlotMaker, which allowed me to cut the layout book templates from 5 to 2.

The rectangle is the available drawing area. The ticks on the corners line up with the title block, and set a 3/16" margin around the sheet. Alignment hotspots should be placed on these ticks. The ticks along the edges at each corner are for aligning plan dimensions.

Note: This is superseded in AC10 by Sheet Area RND10.

The project templates' plan window now has a drawing area object and corner alignment hotspots for each sheet size. Delete the ones you don't need. Move the object around to center the plan, then move the hotspots to the corners on each story.

But you don't use the drawing area and the hotspots to align the plans in PM so the plans stack in a professional and aesthetically pleasing manner? Well you better start.

I have modified the layout book templates so that all the sheet sizes are avilable in one book. There are no longer separate books for each size. There is a 'New.lbk' in the 01 CDs folder, and an 'Existing.lbk' in the 09 Existing Conditions folder.

In the templates are master layouts for each sheet size. When beginning a book, hook the layouts to the masters of the correct size. You will also need to modify Plot Setup. In the 'Main' master for each size is a Tiff of the Plot Setup settings. Once you've done Plot Setup you can delete the Tiffs.

I have modified the Workflow article on starting a layout book, but if you see something in there that doesn't make sense let me know.