A plot or PDF looks wrong
- Who this affects
- Anyone plotting to paper or PDF, from the Plot window or with musacad --plot.
- Why it happens
- Each of these comes from one setting in the Plot window, a layer that is set not to plot, or the linetype scale.
Open the Plot window with PLOT (or Ctrl+P), change one setting, and click Preview… to check before you plot again.
The page is empty, or shows the wrong part
Section titled “The page is empty, or shows the wrong part”- Plot area. Display plots what is on screen now. Extents plots everything in the drawing. Window plots a rectangle you pick with Pick Window <. Choose Extents if you are not sure.
- Layers that do not plot. A layer can be on screen but set not to plot. In the Layer Properties Manager (
LAYER), check the Plot column. Layers that are off or frozen do not plot either. - A layout with nothing in its viewport. When you plot a layout, Musa CAD plots the sheet at full size, with whatever its viewports show. Open the layout and check that the viewport shows your drawing.
Every line has the same thickness
Section titled “Every line has the same thickness”Tick Plot object lineweights in the Plot window. Then make sure your layers or objects have lineweights set. The LWT button on the status bar only changes the screen. It does not change the plot.
Colours come out in colour, but should be black
Section titled “Colours come out in colour, but should be black”Set Plot style (CTB) to Monochrome (all black). Grayscale turns colours into shades of grey. From the command line, add --monochrome to musacad --plot.
Dashed lines look solid, or the dashes are huge
Section titled “Dashed lines look solid, or the dashes are huge”The dashes are scaled by the linetype scale. If they are too small to see, they look solid.
- Type
LTSCALEand try a bigger value, such as 10 for a drawing in millimetres. A smaller value makes the dashes shorter. - In layouts,
PSLTSCALEset to 1 scales dashes by each viewport’s scale, so they look the same in every viewport. MSLTSCALEset to 1 makes dashes in model space follow the annotation scale.
The drawing is the wrong size on paper
Section titled “The drawing is the wrong size on paper”Fit to paper scales the plot area to fill the sheet. That is quick, but the drawing is not to scale. To plot at a real scale, untick Fit to paper and set Scale, for example 1 mm on paper to 5 drawing units for 1:5. Tick Center the plot to centre it on the sheet.
From the command line, --fit fills the sheet and --scale 1:5 plots at a scale.
Text is missing or looks different
Section titled “Text is missing or looks different”See Text looks different from the original.
The full list of plot options from the command line is in The command line.