Plotting, Output, and Drawing Documentation
Output control
Plot from a layout, not from model space, so the sheet, title block, viewport scale and lineweights are fixed. Page setup defines paper size, orientation, plot scale, plot style table and plot area. CTB files map colours to lineweights; STB files map named plot styles. Use a monochrome table for mechanical drawings unless colour has a defined meaning. Check that the plotted text height is at least 2.5 mm and preferably 3.5 mm.
Documentation
Every drawing carries a unique number, title, revision, date, scale, units and approval. Revisions are recorded in a revision block with a letter or number, a description and a date. An engineering change notice authorises the change and must be traceable to the drawing. Issue PDFs as vector output where possible; keep the native DWG and the plotted PDF as a matched pair.
Worked example
A model-space detail is 600 mm long and must appear on an A3 sheet. A3 has a 420-mm width; at 1:1 it does not fit, and at 1:2 it becomes 300 mm, which fits within the roughly 400-mm drawing area. Set the viewport scale to 1:2, set the plot scale to 1:1 for the sheet, and set annotation scale to 1:2 so 3.5-mm text is 7 mm in model space. Plot to PDF and measure the title-block text: it must read 3.5 mm on paper. If “fit to paper” is used instead, the scale becomes non-standard and the stated 1:2 is a lie.
Traps
Plotting with fit-to-paper, leaving lineweights on default so everything prints the same weight, missing SHX fonts that substitute on another machine, forgetting to update the revision block, and archiving only the PDF without the DWG.