AutoCAD® 2009 & AutoCAD LT® 2009 All-in-One Desk Reference for Dummies®

Chapter 3. Print, Plot, Publish

Even with the growth of the Internet and online project collaboration sites, many people still want or need drawings to be delivered in hard-copy format — in other words, printed. Many years ago, the idea of a paperless society was born with the introduction of the Internet. Despite what some predicted, however, our dependency on paper has not dwindled that much, so you still need to hang onto those printers and plotters for the time being.

Throughout this book, I've covered many of the necessary techniques to set up your drawings and prepare them for output. Page setups and layouts play an important role in getting your drawings onto a sheet of paper, but to get to the finish line, you need to do a bit more work yet. This chapter looks at configuring a printer or plotter to output your drawings and also covers plot styles, which can be used to affect how the linework of your drawing looks when it's outputted.

You Say Printing, I Say Plotting, They Say Publishing

Printing, plotting, and publishing are all terms that I cover in this chapter. For the most part, they all produce the same result: a hard copy or an electronic file for sharing from your drawing files. The process of getting to the end result varies, based on which path you decide to take. In AutoCAD, printing usually involves small drawings that can be output to a laser or inkjet printer. Output is usually done on an 8½ × 11 sheet of paper, but might also be 11 × 17, based on your printer's ...