Publish an Electronic Drawing Set

You can publish an electronic drawing set in the Design Web Format.

You can assemble drawing sheets into a customized electronic drawing set. An electronic drawing set is the digital equivalent of a set of plotted drawings. An electronic drawing set is saved as a single, multisheet DWF file and can be shared with customers, suppliers, or people within your own company who may need the drawings for examination or for their records.

You can also send the published electronic drawing set as an email attachment, share it using a project collaboration site such as Autodesk ^® 360, or post it to a website. Using Autodesk ^® Design Review, you can view or plot only the layouts you need.

You can also publish the drawing set as individual, single-sheet DWF files for each sheet.

When you publish to a DWF file, you use the DWF6 ePlot.pc3 plotter configuration file. You can use the default DWF6 ePlot.pc3 plotter driver as installed, or you can modify configuration settings such as color depth, display resolution, file compression, font handling, and other options. Once you modify the DWF6 ePlot.pc3 file, all future plotting and publishing of DWF files will be affected.

Danger: Before you make changes to the original DWF6 ePlot.pc3 file, make sure you have backed up a copy in case you want to return to the default settings.

Procedures

To create an electronic drawing set

1. Click Home tab Output panel Batch Plot.
2. In the Publish dialog box, you can modify the list of sheets by doing any of the following as needed:
   • Add sheets. To add sheets from other drawings, click the Add Sheets button (or drag drawings from the desktop). In the Select Drawings dialog box, select drawings. Click Select to add them to the list of sheets in the Publish dialog box. All of the layouts in a drawing become individual sheets in the list of drawing sheets. You must remove those sheets that you don't want to become a part of the drawing set. A layout must be initialized (its paper size must be defined in the page setup to any size other than 0 x 0) before it can be published.
   Note: To include all layouts when you add sheets to a drawing set, make sure the Include Layouts When Adding Sheets option is selected on the shortcut menu or in the Publish dialog box.
   • Include model layouts. If you include an uninitialized (the paper size is not defined in the page setup or is set to 0 x 0) model layout, it will be marked as Uninitialized in the Status column on the sheet list. It can be plotted if you select an override page setup for it in the Publish dialog box from the page setup drop-down list under Page Setups in the sheet list.
   Note: To include the model when you add sheets to a drawing set for a DWF file, make sure the Include Model When Adding Sheets option is selected either on the shortcut menu or in the Publish dialog box.
   • Remove sheets. To remove sheets from the list, select one or more sheets, and then click the Remove Sheets button. To remove all sheets, right-click. Click Remove All.
   • Reorder sheets. To reorder the sheets up or down one position in the list, select a sheet. Click either the Move Sheet Up or Move Sheet Down button. Sheets in the drawing set are viewed or plotted in the order shown in the list.
   • Rename sheets. To rename a sheet, select it in the list and right-click. Click Rename Sheet. Enter the new sheet name.
   • Change page setups. To change the page setup for a layout, select the sheet, and in the Page Setup list select a named page setup from the list; or select one or more sheets and right-click. Click Change Page Setup. In the Page Setup list, select a page setup, or select Import to import page setups from another drawing or template. In the Import Page Setups dialog box, select a drawing with one or more page setups. Click Import. In the Page Setup list, select a named page setup.
   Note: It is important that you change the page setup for each layout depending on your desired output. Only model space page setups can be applied to model space sheets, and only paper space page setups can be applied to paper space sheets.
   • Copy sheets. To copy one or more drawing sheets, select the sheets in the list and right-click. Click Copy Selected Sheets. The copied drawing sheets are added and highlighted at the end of the sheet list. When a sheet is copied, its name is created by the addition of -Copy(n) at the end of the original sheet name. For example, if you create one copy of a sheet called Plumbing, the copied sheet is called Plumbing-Copy(1). Each time you copy the same sheet, the n is incremented by 1. By creating copies of a sheet, you can have different page setups and other settings for the same sheet.
3. When your list of drawing sheets is assembled and configured the way you want for your drawing set, click the Save List button.
4. In the Save List As dialog box, in the File Name box, enter a name for the list. Click Save.

   The drawing set list is saved as a DSD (Drawing Set Descriptions) file.

5. In the Publish dialog box, under Publish To, select DWF or DWFx File. Click Publish.
6. In the Select DWF File dialog box, enter a file name. Click Select to provide the name and destination for the DWF file.
   Note: You can also enter a URL so that the DWF file is uploaded to an FTP or HTTP site.
7. Click Save to start the electronic drawing set creation.

   If you have background publishing enabled, the animated plotter icon on the right side of the status bar indicates that the publish job is in progress.

8. To view information about the processed publish job, right-click the plotter icon on the right side of the status bar. Click View Plot and Publish Details.

   The information in the Plot and Publish Details dialog box is also saved to the plot and Publish log file.

9. If you have background publishing enabled you can view the published DWF file. Right-click the plotter icon on the right side of the status. Click View DWF File.