Object colour overrides versus a named plot style table
Your 60-layer base plan is clean, but two drafters have been making objects print lighter by changing each object's colour in the Properties palette rather than by layer. The base is xref'd into 14 sheet files, and the project has just migrated from a colour-dependent (CTB) table to a named plot style table (STB) with five fixed styles. One more pressure point: the architectural xref's grid layer must read light grey on the plan sheets and dark on the enlarged stair sheets, and both sheets live in the same host drawing. Issue is in three days.
1. How would you find and undo the object-level colour overrides, and why do they now matter less - and more - than the drafters think?
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Find and undo them. SETBYLAYER is the command built for this: choose which properties to reset (Colour, Linetype, Lineweight, Transparency, Plot style) and whether blocks are included. Then verify rather than assume: run QSELECT with Property = Colour, Operator = not equal, Value = ByLayer, and confirm the count is zero before you plot. Re-run it after the block pass, since nested objects hide overrides.
Why less. Under the old CTB, colour drove the pen, so a per-object colour change really did change plotted weight. Under an STB, layers map to named plot styles and colour stops controlling the plot. The overrides no longer buy the intended effect.
Why more. They still break the drawing. They defeat any later layer or style change, they make the object's appearance unexplainable to the next drafter, and they hide real layer standard violations. Fix plotted weight in the layer's Plot Style column, in one place - not 1,400.
Caution. SETBYLAYER on layer-0 objects inside blocks sets them to layer 0's properties. Diff a plot before and after.
2. The grid layer needs two different colours on two sheets in the same host drawing. State what AutoCAD actually allows here and rank the options.
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The constraint. VISRETAIN = 1 preserves xref layer property changes made in the host and keeps them across reloads (VISRETAIN = 0 lets the xref's own settings win). But those overrides are drawing-wide: a layer has one colour in the DWG, across every layout. VP Freeze is per viewport; colour is not. So one host file cannot display the grid in two colours on two sheets by layer properties alone.
Options, best first.
- On AutoCAD 2021 or later, use viewport layer overrides - the VP Overrides column sets colour, linetype, lineweight and transparency per viewport without touching the base. Confirm the team's release before relying on it.
- Split the two sheets into separate host drawings that both xref the same base. Cleanest on older releases, and it decouples the two presentations permanently.
- Keep one host and apply two saved layer states (LAYERSTATE) before each plot. It works, but it is order-dependent: a batch plot with the wrong state loaded ships the wrong sheet, and nobody notices until the client does.
- Never edit the xref source for a presentation tweak. It will be overwritten on the next issue and will change all 14 sheets.
3. The 14 sheet files still carry the old CTB configuration. What converts, what does not, and what will look wrong on the first plot?
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What converts. Plot style mode is a per-drawing property (PSTYLEMODE, read-only). CONVERTPSTYLES converts the current drawing to use named plot styles - it does not convert other files, so every sheet file needs it. CONVERTCTB makes an STB from an existing CTB, which is how you carry the old pen weights forward as a starting point rather than rebuilding five styles from scratch.
What does not convert. Colour-driven intent. A CTB encodes weight in colour; an STB encodes it in named styles. After conversion, layers are mapped to styles by an automatic rule, not by your drawing's conventions, and objects carrying colour overrides lose the effect they were created for. Every layer's Plot Style assignment must be reviewed.
What will look wrong. Screen appearance, because Display Plot Styles now shows named styles rather than colour pens, and the first PDF, where lineweights commonly collapse to one or two values. Plot one representative sheet at full scale, measure lineweights on paper, and only then batch-plot the set.