Connecticut State Department of Transportation

CTDOT CONNECT DDE GUIDE VOLUME 14 - PUBLISHING AND PRINTING


Module 1 - Publishing CAD Content to PDF


Description

This module will instruct users on how to publish CAD content to PDF files using OpenRoads Designer, OpenBridge Modeler and OpenBuildings Designer.

 

Objectives:

  • Learn where to find the custom tool menu.
  • Learn how to Publish a single sheet.
  • Learn how to use the Batch Tools.
  • Learn how to Publish from a Fence Shape.
Custom Publishing Tools
Single Sheet
Sheet Batch Publishing
Miscellaneous Sizes

 

Custom Publishing Tools

The tools for publishing CAD content to PDF are available in the top ribbon, under the CTDOT Workflow’s CTDOT tab in the Publishing Section.

Before getting started users should be familiar with the following terms:

Sheet Model – This is a model in CONNECT Edition (OpenRoads, OpenBridge or OpenBuildings) where the contract sheets are prepared for publishing to PDF.

Transient Shape – This is the grey sheet boundary in a sheet model.

Fence – In terms of publishing to PDF, a fence is a boundary that is placed over that area of a sheet model that you want to publish to PDF.

 

Single Sheet

This section shows how to publish a sheet that has a transient shape assigned to the sheet model.  This should be used to create test pdfs and individual pdfs. This should not be followed when creating a contract discipline subset. Follow the Sheet Batch Publishing section to create multi-page contract discipline subset PDFs.

  1. On the CTDOT tab find the Publishing section, click on the Type pull down menu and select Contract Sheet Model.
  2. Click on the Color pull down menu and select Black and White.
  3. Click on the Print pull down menu and select either Browse to Print or Quick Print.
  • Quick Print will save the PDF in C:/Plots.
  • Browse to Print will allow you to save the PDF in any location.

 

Sheet Batch Publishing

This section must be followed when publishing a contract discipline subset. Batch publishing is used to publish all your contract sheets to PDF at one time.

  1. On the CTDOT tab find the Publishing section, click on the Print pull down menu and select Batch Print.
  2. On the Print Organizer click File > Save As…, browse to your discipline’s Contract Plans folder, give the PSET file a name and click Save.
  3. On the Print Organizer click on the Add Files to Set icon.

  4. On the Create Print Definitions dialog box select Add.
  5. On the Select Files dialog box select all the DGN files that house the needed sheet models.
  6. On the Create Print Definitions dialog box, select a Print style name, click on the browse button, On the Apply Print Style dialog box select CT_Contract_Sheet Models and click OK.
  7. On the Create Print Definitions dialog box click OK to add the files to the set.

     

  8. Make sure the sheets are in the correct order. To change the order, use the sorting tools.

  9. Create the PDF by clicking on the Print icon, make sure All is selected, browse out to where you want the PDF to be saved and then click OK.

  10. Save and Close the PSET file, this file can be reopened and revised as needed.

 

Miscellaneous Sizes

This section is used to publish content to PDF for miscellaneous areas. Examples of this are presentation materials that are larger or smaller than the standard 34” x 22” border we use for our contract plans.

  1. Draw a fence over the area you wish to publish to PDF.
  2. On the CTDOT tab find the Publishing section, click on the Type pull down menu and select Misc Fence.
  3. Click on the Color pull down menu and select Black and White or Color.
  4. In the Print dialog box set the Scale, when you change the scale the PDF size will increase or decrease accordingly.
  5. Select the Print Icon and select where you want to save the PDF and click Save.