Professional Documents
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MicroStation V8 XM Plotting
MICROSTATION Update
COMMUNITY
Introduction
This work benefits MicroStation printing, Batch Print, PDF Composer, as well as
the ProjectWise Plotting product since they use MicroStation as their print
engine.
This session will guide you through some of the new features of MicroStation V8
XM Printing and MicroStation PDF Composer V8 XM. You will learn more about:
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MicroStation V8 XM Plotting Update
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MicroStation V8 XM Plotting Update
The print dialog has been redesigned adding new functionality. Some of these
changes include:
• Mirror setting
A new Print Preferences dialog has been added. This allows easy access to
many settings that were only available via configuration variables.
A thumbnail preview timeout controls the duration of time allowed for generating
a print preview. This can be useful when working with drawings that have raster
data attached.
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MicroStation V8 XM Plotting Update
Non-orthogonal plotting and mirroring may be used if they have been enabled in
the Print Preferences
The Print Attributes have also been updated to include settings such as
transparency.
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MicroStation V8 XM Plotting Update
A new Print in Progress dialog shows the status of a print submittal providing a
button to cancel the print job.
“Unsupported” drivers will not function and therefore are not included in the
product installation. In addition, some delivered PLT files have been
consolidated.
A complete listing of these changes may be found under the Printing Enhancements
section in help.
There are two sets of drivers provided for the supported print devices (in .plt and
.pltcfg files).
The “legacy” text based drivers are still supported but users are encouraged to
move toward the new printer driver configuration files (*.pltcfg).
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MicroStation V8 XM Plotting Update
Printer driver configuration files written from the Printer Driver Configuration
Editor are .pltcfg files which are in a XML markup format. Both .plt and .pltcfg
files can be opened by the editor, but only .pltcfg files will be written.
The Printer Driver Configuration editor may be opened from the Print dialog box
by choosing File > Edit Printer Driver. The version of the editor (Notepad vs. the
new Printer Driver Configuration editor) based upon the type of driver file that is
loaded.
Either format of printer driver may be opened in the new editor. When saved, the
output will be saved to an XML based (.PLTCFG) driver.
When you modify a sample printer driver configuration file, it is a good idea to
retain the original file in its default location, and to save the modified file with a
different name, in a separate directory.
In addition to customized printer driver configuration files, you can use this
directory to store copies of all printer driver configuration files that you commonly
use. This helps to ensure that your modified files are not overwritten during a
subsequent software update, or reinstallation.
Two new specialized drivers have been added for producing output in either a
TIF or CALS format.
TIF Driver
• New MDL engine
• Mono & true color output
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MicroStation V8 XM Plotting Update
CALS Driver
• Mono image format
In most cases, since many drivers do not support such ad-hoc definitions, the
PLT SIZE records serve to filter and rename the Windows paper sizes.
It is also possible to control line weight and line style scaling on an individual
paper size basis by specifying one of the following qualifiers for the SIZE record:
Each qualifier takes a value greater than zero, with 1.0 indicating no scaling.
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MicroStation V8 XM Plotting Update
Several updates have been made to PDF output when using the Bentley
supplied PDF plot drivers. These updates allow you to create more intelligent
PDF’s via MicroStation’s print system.
Updates include:
• Hide 3D toolbar
• Place Walk
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MicroStation V8 XM Plotting Update
• Pen table priority does not have any effect for printing 3D files. Priority is
implemented for printing 3D files through Z depth, using hardware
acceleration when possible, so the pen table is no longer required to make
multiple passes through the element list.
• New Pen Table Options dialog includes support for applying multiple
element sections.
On the Element Selection Criteria tab in the Modify Pen Table dialog box, you
can use regular expressions to select levels. For example, if you key in a.* in the
Level regular expression field, the pen table section will match every level
beginning with a. The comparisons are not case-sensitive. If a pen table contains
a list of levels and a regular expression, all must match the element level name
for the pen table section's output actions to be applied.
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MicroStation V8 XM Plotting Update
• The format of Batch Print specification (.SPC) files is changed for the V8
XM Edition. Specification files written by previous editions of MicroStation
remain valid, but once a specification file is written by the V8 XM Edition, it
will not be usable with previous editions.
• Batch Print permits the use of PLT-defined paper sizes in the system
printer specification.
• There is a new Batch Print Preferences dialog that contains Job Set
Creations options as well as a control to open files in a read-only mode.
• <DGN>-<print counter>.<extension>
• <DGN>-<model>-<print counter>.<extension>
• <job>-<DGN>-<model>-<print counter>.<extension>
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MicroStation V8 XM Plotting Update
The color coding, as shown within a View window, will be picked up automatically
when a print is produced.
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