On Land

[Note: This object has been superseded.]

This is the stamp you will use most of the time. Right now it's the only one we have.

It's pretty hard to tell it apart from the Room Name object. There are some differences.

The name list is hooked up to the Room Name parameter of the zone tool, which lets you select from the list in the info box.

The text size of the name is also available in the info box. The size for the material label is only in the settings, though.

There are parameters for the crown type, base type, and ceiling finish, for use in generating a finish schedule. Note: You must enter these. They don't learn from the room automatically, yet.

v2 is here. It seems to work. The good news is that layout books open like they were never closed. Fast! View updates are much faster too. The bad news, well, ya never know! Sigh. Seriously, I used it all week and it's OK. Still, it's good to be cautious.

Two gotchas so far (maybe you'll be lucky): 1) In PM, after stretching a frame with the arrow tool, frame nodes will not be detectable until you rebuild. Scroll-zooming forces a rebuild so that takes care of it. 2) After rebuilding drawings via drawing usage, the layout window becomes unresponsive. Minimize the window to the dock using the yellow title bar button. Bring it back, and it's OK. I think GS's beta testing consists entirely of demonstrating the software to their dogs. I digress.

The howto follows.

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Note: This is superseded in AC10 by Sheet Area RND10.

UPDATE: This is generally correct, but it has been superseded by this.

So when we open them in the future, they cause as little trouble as possible.

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This is the old way. I decided to keep it for historical interest.

Building on the ability in OS X to save PDFs from the print dialog, we can easily create PDFs of drawing sheets. In PlotMaker 3, you can print multiple sheets at once to a single document, making one PDF of an entire set.

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For two reasons:

• Printing large documents that aren't PLT files, such as big PDFs sent by consultants.

• Creating PDFs of drawing sheets.

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If you ever read anything more boring than this, I'd be very curious to hear about it.

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Send PLT files to the plotter using PlotFlow. Some day, we will be able to run it on the server. Currently, everyone has to run it locally.

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Read this. OK good.

I only save one PMK from AC*; the perspective drawing. Here's how to do it in publisher.

* The PMKs for schedules and such are created in PM.

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An overview of Publisher in AC9, and publishing DWGs. Publisher in AC10 and 11 is here.

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Superseded by this.

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(Defunct. This is better.)

Favorites are preset configurations of the tools. They enable you to quickly configure a tool for a given purpose, like option-clicking without the need for a placed element.

I have never developed a strong affection for them, for several reasons. They were terribly implemented when they started, in AC6.5 if memory serves. Until AC8, there was no button for favorites in the settings box (?!!). Finally, in a far-along project, option-clicking is still the fastest method. Modules are also nice.

In AC8 the feature is mature enough that I can recommend you try it.

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