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Using the Sheet Set Manager (Part 1)

The Sheet Set Manager is a handy tool for managing groups of drawings. A Sheet Set can be composed of any number of drawings and/or layouts, each of which equates to a printed page in the final plan set. The Sheet Set Manager serves as an index to the drawings in the sheet set, aiding in drawing navigation. It can be used to open drawings in a sheet set (although this feature has some caveats in Land Desktop 2007), as well as create new drawings in a sheet set. The Sheet Set Manager can be used to plot any or all sheets in a sheet set with a single command, and can send an entire sheet set to a single PDF file. A Table Of Contents can also be automatically created from the Sheet Set Manager and added to a page in your sheet set. The Sheet Set Manager also maintains a variety of parameters for the sheet set, as well as parameters for each individual sheet in the set. For example, the Sheet Set Manager has a property for the "Project Name". Then, if the title blocks have the correct fields set up, the "Project Name" will automatically appear in the correct spot in every page in the sheet set. The user only has to type the name once, in the Sheet Set Manager, and it automatically shows up on every page. I should note here that we currently do all work in Land Desktop 2007, so this tutorial is geared toward the Land Desktop 2007 user. I have tried to note differences for users of Vanilla Autocad or earlier versions of Land Desktop whenever applicable, but you may need to adjust certain instructions in this tutorial if you use some other version of Autocad. The first part of this article explains how to setup Sheet Sets. Part 2 explains how to use Sheet Sets.

Sheet Sets and Drawings


The Sheet Set is a relatively flexible tool. It can be used in a variety of ways, but it works best with a well-defined drawing structure, containing multiple levels of "Plot Drawings" and "Model Drawings". Most of your linework should exist Model Space in one or more "Model Drawings". These drawings are then XREF'd into "Plot Drawings" as needed:

In general, each Plot Drawing has only one layout tab, which equates to one plotted page in the final plan set. Title blocks are placed in the Plot Drawing, generally in paperspace. Model Drawings are XREF'd into modelspace, and may be XCLIP'd as desired. Any additional objects or text may also be placed in individual Plot Drawings, in either modelspace or paperspace. Also, all layer settings should be configured correctly for the page. It is important to remember that Layer States are not integrated with the Sheet Set
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Manager. Therefore, it may be best to keep VISRETAIN set to 1 in your Plot Drawings, so that individual sheets will not get their layer settings inadvertently changed by someone working in a model drawing (one of the XREFs). If you use the Sheet Set Manager to create new drawings, it tends to assume you are using the structure outlined above. You do not have to do this. You can actually place everything in one drawing, and use multiple layout tabs in the drawing for each page. Just keep in mind is that the Sheet Set Manager does not use Layer States, so it should be possible to plot all layout pages in the drawing without changing Layer States.

Setting Up Sheet Sets


Sheet Sets are stored in files that end with a .DST extension. Like drawings, Sheet Sets are created from templates. Unlike drawings, any .DST file can be used as a Sheet Set template. There is no special "Sheet Set template" filetype, the way there is a .DWT file for a drawing template. So really, our "Sheet Set templates" are nothing more than blank Sheet Sets. When we create a new Sheet Set from a template, we are basically just making an empty copy of the Sheet Set. We can also use any existing Sheet Set as the template for another Sheet Set. So, if we want to create a new plan set that looks exactly like an existing plan set, we can use the existing .DST file to create our new Sheet Set. It is important to note that the new Sheet Set is empty - it has no Sheets in it. The Sheet Set merely serves as a central organization and control point for a group of related drawings (.DWG files). After we create the new Sheet Set, we can use it to create new drawing files and add them to the Sheet Set as Sheets, or we can add existing drawing layouts to the Sheet Set as Sheets. Drawing files are not automatically created when we create a Sheet Set.

The templates for Sheet Sets are actually closely linked to the templates for drawings. The location for the templates is specified in the "Template Settings" portion of OPTIONs. Drawing Templates Before we create a Sheet Set template, we first create a drawing template, containing all desired drawing settings. Then create one layout in the template for each type of page in the sheet set. These types of sheets might include a title/index sheet, horizontal layout and control sheets, plan and profile sheets, etc. Alternatively, the drawing template might have only a single, generic layout, with nothing but a title block. Or maybe it has one layout for 36x48 pages, one for 30x42 pages, one for 24x36 pages, etc. Once you create your layouts, place a title block in each layout. It is often useful to create your title block as an Autocad Block with Attributes, and keep it as a block in your layouts (do not explode the title block). In addition to the title block, you can place any other items
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you wish to appear by default. For example, you can include any general notes, north arrows and scales, viewports, etc. Create the Sheet Set Template The next step is to create a Sheet Set Template. Remember, a Sheet Set Template is nothing but an existing Sheet Set. Create the new Sheet Set by selecting "New Sheet Set" from the "File..." menu. Or you can hit CTRL-4 to open the Sheet Set Manager, and select "New Sheet Set" in the Sheet Set Manager. This will start the Sheet Set creation wizard. Select "Create a sheet set using an example sheet set", and hit "Next". This screen should contain a list of "Sheet Set Templates". It probably contains the default Autocad templates, unless you have deleted them or changed the template path. You can select a sheet set from this list if you wish, or you can browse to any other existing Sheet Set (.DST file) and use that. If you have deleted or otherwise lost the default sheet sets created by Autodesk and want to use one of them, a copy of them should be located in <Your Autocad install dir>\UserDataCache\Template\SheetSets (make sure you don't overwrite anything in this directory). Once you have selected a Sheet Set to use as a template, hit "Next". You should now be at a screen where you can type in a name and description for your sheet set. This will actually be a template for new sheet sets, so choose a name accordingly. In the field where it asks you to specify the location of the .DST file, browse to the location for your Sheet Set templates (as specified in the OPTIONs).

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Now click on "Sheet Set Properties". Glance through the properties. They are probably configured with some sort of default values; you should go through them and change anything that needs to be changed. An example is at the left. Notice the name and description fields should contain the values you entered in the Wizard. For now, skip over the properties in the top section, and look at the properties in the section called "Project Control". There should be four default properties there - "Project number", "Project name", etc. The diagram to the left illustrates some sample values, and we'll see how they are used in the next section. Or if you prefer, you can ignore these default

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properties, and create your own custom properties. (More on custom properties in a moment.) A bit further down is another section called "Sheet Creation". You can ignore the "Sheet storage location" for now. Click on the entry for "Sheet Creation template", and browse to your drawing template (your .DWT file you created earlier). The layouts in the drawing should appear in the list. Select the default layout that should be used by default whenever a new sheet is created for this sheet set. This is the layout that the Sheet Set Manager will use if you right-click on the Sheet Set name in the Sheet Set Manager, and select "New Sheet..." The next property in the SSM is the "Prompt for template" option. If you set this to "Yes", the user will be given the option to select a different layout (rather than the default) when a new sheet is created. You can also create any additional properties you may want by clicking on the "Edit Custom Properties" button at the bottom of the Sheet Set Properties dialog. There should be a property for every field in your title block. There are a number of custom properties in the sample Sheet Set Template in the diagram. Custom properties have two different scopes: they may have a single value for the entire sheet set, or they may have a different value for each individual sheet. This behavior is determined by the "owner" of the custom property. When you create a custom property, you can specify if the owner is the "Sheet Set" or the "Sheet". For example, each page may be drawn and checked by different people, so the "DRAWN_BY" and "CHECKED_BY" properties are both Sheet properties. In this example, the owner of the "DATE_ISSUED" property is the "Sheet Set", and the owner of the "DRAWN_BY" property is the "Sheet". Create as many custom properties as you wish, and set the default values to whatever you wish. Then hit OK to get back to the Sheet Set Wizard, and hit "Next". You should see a summary of the Sheet Set you just created. Make sure everything looks OK and hit "Finish". Adding Fields to Drawing Templates The next step is to add Autocad Fields to the appropriate places in the drawing templates, and link the fields to the corresponding property in the Sheet Set. Unfortunately, this process is rather cumbersome. Hopefully it will be improved in a future version of Autocad. In the meantime, the process isn't really difficult, it just has a lot of steps that should be unnecessary. In order to do create the fields we need, we have to temporarily link our Sheet Set Template with our Drawing Template. Unfortunately, a .DWT file cannot be added to a sheet set. To get around this problem, we'll temporarily convert our Drawing Template into a .DWG file. Open the Drawing Template (.DWT) file you created earlier, then select File->"Save As..." and save the template as a .DWG file. We will perform the next series of steps in the .DWG file, and when we are done, we'll use "Save as..." to convert it back into a .DWT file. Now we'll hook the Sheet Set Template to the .DWG file. The Sheet Set Template you created in the last section should still be open in the Sheet Set Manager. Right-click on it and select "Import layout as sheet..." Browse to your template .DWG file (the one you just created), and select it. Make sure all layouts are selected, and hit "Import".

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Now you can start adding fields to your drawing layouts. Switch to the first layout that has one of your title blocks in it. Assuming your title block is an Autocad Block with Attributes, you should edit the default values of the attributes. This is important, for a reason we'll see in a moment. There are two ways to do this. One is to select the title block, then right-click and select "Edit block in-place". Then double-click on each Attribute in turn, and edit the Default value. The other way is to type BATTMAN in order to start the Block Attribute Manager, and use it to edit the Default values of the Attributes. In either case, you should end up in the Attribute Editor, as seen in the diagram on the right. Right-click inside the text box and select "Insert Field..." This will bring up the Field dialog, as seen below on the left. In the Field dialog, find the appropriate Field. To limit the choices to Sheet Set fields, use the "Field category" selection box. The image on the left shows the user selecting the "CurrentSheetSetProjectName" field, which equates to the "Project Name" property in the Sheet Set.

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Notice that the current value of the property in the Sheet Set is displayed just to the right of the "Field category". If you want to format the case of the text, select the desired "Format", and then hit "OK". You have now used a Field to link the attribute in the title block to the "Project Name" property in the Sheet Set. Whenever you change the value of the property in the Sheet Set, the text will change in the field. Continue attaching fields in this manner, until you have setup fields in all attributes. In the course of doing this, you may notice one of the many issues with Sheet Sets - if a property is left blank in the Sheet Set, it will show up as "------" in the associated field. In order to get a field to show up as "empty" or "blank" instead of as "-------", enter a SHIFT+SPACE character (or hold down ALT and type 0160 on the number keypad) for the field in the Sheet Set Manager. There is a related issue, however, that if you set a property to SHIFT+SPACE, you may not be able to attach the field. If this happens, go into the Sheet Set Manager and set the default value of the property to a dummy value (the name of the property works well). Then insert the field into your title block with your dummy value. Once you have finished setting up your fields, go back into the Sheet Set Manager and change the default value of the property back to SHIFT+SPACE.

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At this point, you have setup the default values for the attributes. However, in order to get the title block to work correctly with the "New sheet..." command in the Sheet Set Manager, the current value of the attributes must also be a field. In order to accomplish this, delete the title block and reinsert it. As the block is inserted, the attributes will all be set to the default value. The result should be similar to the image to the right. Now that you've completed the first layout tab, continue on to the rest of the layout tabs. When you have finished setting up all the fields in all layout tabs, remove all sheets from the Sheet Set. When we hook a Sheet Set to a drawing, it writes information about the link into the drawing, and we don't want that information in our template. Simply right-click on the sheets in the Sheet Set Manager and remove them. Then using the "Save As..." command, save your template as a Drawing Template (.DWT) file. The Sheet Set and Drawing templates should now be ready to use.

Subsets It is common for a set of plans to contain a number of different types of sheets. For example, a typical plan set might start off with a Title Page, then proceed to General Notes, then Project Control, then Horizontal Layout, then Plan and Profile sheets, etc. Each type of sheet in the plan set may have a significantly different layout. We would like to create a sheet set that supports all of these different types of sheets. There are basically two different options. However, both of them require us to create a template Layout for each type of sheet. Typically, we would do this by creating a number of
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different layouts in our Drawing Template (.DWT file), as stated earlier in this article. There would be one layout for the Title Page, one layout for the General Notes, one for Project Control, etc. But then we have a choice.
Option 1: Let the User select the Layout

To prompt the user to select a layout, the "Prompt for template" option should be set to "Yes" in the Sheet Set properties. When the user selects "New Sheet...", the Sheet Set Manager will ask the user to browse to the correct Drawing Template (.DWT) file, and select a layout.
Option 2: Use a Subset

For this option, create a Subset in your Sheet Set Template for each type of sheet. When you create a new Sheet Set from a Template, all subsets in the Template are also created in the new Sheet Set. Each Subset can be configured to load a different Layout. To create a new Sheet (a new .DWG file) of the appropriate type, the user would simply right-click on the desired Subset, and select "New sheet..." This is somewhat nicer than the previous option, in that the user doesn't have to browse for a template. Sheets in each Subset can also be placed in subdirectories, if you wish. Right-click on a Subset to call up its properties. Edit any of the fields to change the behavior of the subset.

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Using the Sheet Set Manager (Part 2)


The first part of this article explains how to setup Sheet Sets. This part explains how to use Sheet Sets.

Using Sheet Sets


Once you have created a Sheet Set, it becomes the central management point for a whole collection of drawings in your project. In future versions of AutoCAD, the Sheet Set Manager may largely replace the Open and New dialog boxes, and become a sort of "Drawing Explorer" tool. It hasn't reached that point yet, but even with it's current limited capabilities, the Sheet Set Manager can be rather useful. Creating New Sheets To create a new drawing and add it as a sheet in the sheet set, simply right-click on the Sheet Set (or Subset). The new sheet will be created in the location specified in the Sheet Set. The "New Sheet" dialog will pop open, asking you to specify the Sheet Number and Sheet Title. Unfortunately, the Sheet Set Manager does not have any automatic support for sheet set numbering. (Maybe this feature will be added in a future version.) The "New Sheet" dialog will also come up with a default file name, by combining the sheet number and sheet name. Unfortunately, there is not yet any way to customize this process, so that the filenames fit your company's standard naming conventions, but you can just type a filename on the next line. This creates a .DWG file containing the layout specified in the template (or the layout selected by the user, if that option was enabled). You can also add a layout from an existing drawing to a sheet set. Right-click on the sheet set and select "Import layout as sheet...", then browse to the drawing and select the layout(s) to import. After you have created your new sheet, right-click on the drawing and select "Properties...". Change any properties that may need changing. You can now double-click on the sheet in the Sheet Set Manager to open the drawing (although there's a special caveat for Land Desktop 2007 users that we'll get to in a moment.) Assuming you have setup the title block in the layout as described earlier, the title block in the new drawing will be automatically linked to your sheet set, and all values should appear with the correct text as soon as you open the drawing. If you used an existing drawing that doesn't have a title block in it, use Design Center to browse to your Drawing Template. Find the desired title block, right-click on it, and insert it from the Template into the current drawing. When you change a value in the sheet set, you should see it update in the drawing as soon as the fields are updated. By default, fields are updated when you REGEN (RE) or REGENALL (REA). They are also updated when you open, save, plot, or eTransmit your drawing. You can disable any of these on the User Preferences tab of OPTIONS, but it is strongly recommended that you leave all of them enabled.
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Sheet List Tables

The Sheet Set Manager has limited capabilities for inserting tables of contents, called Sheet List Tables, in your drawing. In order to insert a Sheet List Table, you must have AutoCAD open to a paperspace layout, and the layout must be a Sheet in the Sheet Set. It doesn't have to be the first Sheet in the Sheet Set, but it must be one of the Sheets in the Sheet Set. Before you insert a Sheet List Table, make sure you have created a good Table Style, one designed to be used in paperspace. To insert the Sheet List Table, right-click on the Sheet List and select "Insert Sheet List Table". You should see the dialog box shown on the right. Notice that you have freedom to configure all of the columns however you wish. You can even add your Custom Sheet Properties to the table, if you wish. This gives you the ability to put a wide variety of information into a Sheet List Table. Once you have inserted a Sheet List Table, you can right-click on the table and call up its properties. You can configure this table however you wish. You can even insert multiple Sheet List Tables, and configure each of them in a different way. If you make changes to your sheets, simply right-click on the Sheet List Table and select "Update Sheet List Table".

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The "Insert Sheet List Table" command is somewhat limited. Every time you use it, it will start up with the same options as the last table you inserted. There does not seem to be any way to create a Sheet List Template. However, you can work around this limitation. Once you insert a Sheet List Table into a drawing, it behaves much like a Dynamic Block. You can WBLOCK this Table out of one drawing and into another drawing, even if the drawing is in a different Sheet Set. After you insert the table into the new drawing, simply "Update" it. It should automatically change to reflect the new Sheet Set. You can also place Sheet Set Tables in your Drawing Template file, so that new Sheets already have the Sheet Set Table in them. Special Note for Land Desktop 2007 Users In Vanilla Autocad and in Land Desktop versions prior to 2007, you can double-click on a sheet in the Sheet Set Manger to open the drawing. With Land Desktop 2007 configured to default behavior, double-clicking on the drawing in the Sheet Set Manager will still open the drawing, but the currently-open drawing will also be left open. The user now has two drawings open, but the new drawing is opened in something called "Land Disabled mode", where all Land Desktop commands fail to work. This is particularly useless, and even dangerous. By closing other drawings, you can get Land Desktop commands to start working again. Unfortunately, you can also end up working in a drawing from one project while accessing the project data (points, alignments, etc.) from another project. So getting Land Desktop into "Land Disabled" mode should be avoided at all costs. If you accidentally get multiple drawings open simultaneously in Land Desktop 2007, immediately shut down Land Desktop and restart it. The main reason for this change in Land Desktop behavior appears to be that it allows certain commands to work inside of Land Desktop. For example, it is now possible to create Map Annotations in Land Desktop. So now you can create a Map topology and database links, and use them to insert Map Annotations into your drawing, all without exiting from Land Desktop. You can also run the PUBLISH command from Land Desktop, instead of being forced to switch to Map to PUBLISH (more about PUBLISH later). Unfortunately, because of the poor way that Autodesk implemented the change, it also means that you cannot use the Sheet Set Manager to move between drawings. You also cannot use the drawings in the "Most Recent Drawings" list in the "File" menu. You can partially workaround this issue by setting the SDI system variable to 1 when working in Land Desktop. Simply type SDI at the command prompt, and set it to 1. (You can also type OPTIONS, and check the box next to "Single-drawing compatibility mode" on the System tab.) This causes Land Desktop to behave (almost) as in previous versions of Land Desktop, restricting the user to one drawing at a time. You can now use the Sheet Set Manager and the "Recent Drawings..." list to move between drawings. If you need to PUBLISH or use any of the other commands that only work in MDI mode, simply type SDI and set it back to 0. When you finish the task, set SDI back to 1. Unfortunately, the OPEN command in Land Desktop only works when SDI is set to 0. This means that if you set SDI mode to 1 while you work, you can ONLY use the Sheet Set Manager or the Recent Files... list to navigate between drawings. If you ever need to actually browse to a drawing and OPEN it, then you have to set SDI back to 0. However, this can
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rapidly get so confusing that you may wish to just leave SDI at 0 and learn to live with it. This is a terrible mess that hopefully Autodesk will fix with a service patch. Until then, Land Desktop users must suffer a bit. This problem is extremely annoying, but it can be managed with patience.

Publishing (Plotting) Sheet Sets


All pages in a sheet set can be plotted at once with the PUBLISH command. Or you can PUBLISH just a subset of the pages. You can also modify the Page Setup of all pages in a sheet set as you publish it. There are a variety of options. Publishing from the Sheet Set Manager The simplest way to publish a sheet set is to right-click on the sheet set in the Sheet Set Manager and select "Publish to plotter". This will send each page to the Page Setup stored with the layout. Similarly, you can select "Publish to DWF" to send the Sheet Set to DWF format. Note that you can initiate this plot action from the Sheet Set Manager even if you do not have any of the drawings open. If you want a standard Autocad plot stamp to appear on your drawing, right-click on the Sheet Set and select "Include Plot Stamp". You can also select "Plot Stamp Settings..." to

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configure the settings.

You can also right-click on the Sheet Set and select "Publish dialog box..." to customize your options even further. This is almost the same thing as typing PUBLISH at the command line (or selecting "Publish..." from the "File" menu). The difference is that selecting the "Publish dialog box" from the Sheet Set Manager will call up a dialog box populated with all the sheets in the sheet set. The PUBLISH command will call up the same dialog box, populated with all layout tabs in the currently-open drawing. In the Publish Dialog Box, you can change the number of copies, or change the order that the pages print in (first to last or last to first), or change the layout used for each page. Page Setup Overrides
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Page Setup Overrides can be used to send an entire sheet set to a different plotter than the one specified in the page layouts. For example, you can have the Page Setup in the Layout plot to your main, full-size plotter. By default, when you open the drawing and hit "Plot...", this is the plotter that the drawing will plot on. You can also specify a different Page Setup to use to plot. The caveat is that the Page Setup must plot either by "Layout" or by "Extents", and not by "Window". Any Page Setup that specifies a Windows cannot be used as a Page Setup Override. The easiest way to setup your Page Setups is to place all of them into your main Drawing Template (.DWT file). This will make sure that all Page Setups are in every drawing you create. But you can also specify this same .DWT file as the location of the Page Setup Overrides. Right-click on your Sheet Set and select "Properties", then select "Page setup overrides file" and browse to your Drawing Template. If you set this in your Sheet Set Template, then all sheet sets will have the Page Setup Overrides already configured when you create them. Once you specify a source for the Page Setup Overrides, you can select them in the Sheet Set Manager. Creating PDF's The easiest way to send an entire sheet set to PDF is to create a Sheet Set Override that creates PDFs. Then Publish your sheet set using the Page Setup Override. Your entire sheet set should be published to a single PDF file. If you use the DWG to PDF.PC3 converter that comes with Autocad 2007, your PDF file will be in the parent directory of the file that contains your Page Setup Overrides. So, if you are using your Drawing Template as your Page Setup Override file, your PDF's will be created in the parent directory of your Drawing Templates. As far as I know, there is no way to change this behavior. If you use another PDF creator, you may be able to specify a default location for storing PDF files. eTransmit and Archive You can also eTransmit an entire sheet set. In the Sheet Set Manager, right-click on the sheet set and select "eTransmit...". Select or create an eTransmittal Setup, and create the eTransmit archive. Your entire sheet set is now ready to be shipped off or archived. There is also an "Archive..." option. As near as I can tell, this is identical to eTransmit, except that it uses a "preset Transmittal Setup". It's therefore a "quick" version of eTransmit that doesn't require the user to select the eTransmittal Setup. Other Features This document gives a basic rundown on how to use most of the features of Sheet Sets. There is nothing here about how to use Sheet Sets to manage Views. I may add that at a future date. In the meantime, this should be enough to get you started using Sheet Sets, which should greatly simplify your document management and plotting tasks.

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