Bookplotter

This document will show you how to create a book with the hsbBookplotter function.

You can create a complete printable Book from your drawing with a Frontpage, Titlepage and Chapters.

Once you’ve created Chapters you can create different books.

The benefit in using the Bookplotter is that you only need 2 layouts (A3 and A4) to print all your different views that are made in different scales. (1:1 – 1:5 – 1:10 – 1:30 ect)

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Before you can use this function hsbcad needs to attach the hsbBookplotter toolset to your license, it will NOT work if this has not been done.

Before you start creating a bookplot

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Before you start the Bookplotter you need to make a few Layouts in paper space with hsbcad viewport settings (A4 and A3).

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When it’s the first time you use the bookplotter command (any command in the pulldown menu) in any drawing it will ask you Do you want to select a Publish file.
This file is an export file that you can create once you have setup your Bookplotter.

• First we need to create some Chapters in the Book.
• Select the Design Chapters from the pulldown menu.

• or from the ribbon, in this case we are working with the Dutch ribbon.

• An hsb dialog box appears asking you Do you want to select a Publish file.
• Select NO. 

How to create Chapters

• This will open the ‘’Edit Chapter’’ Dialog box.

New: Add a new Chapter
Change: Change a Chapter
Delete: Delete a Chapter
Save: Save the Changes

• Select the New button.
• This will open the Chapter dialog box.

Chapter name: Enter a Chapter name. (for example Cover Page)
Chapter Nr: Enter a Chapter nr.(this will be used to sequence the book) (for example 01 -02 -03
Source: Select the data you want to use.
- For 2D drawings select NONE in the dropdown.
- For hsbcad Enities select the desired one. If you want to add a mix of Walls\Roofs\Floors select the ElementMixed option.
Group Name: This will tell the Chapter where to get its information from.
- For 2D printing add nothing
- For hsbcad Enities, fill in the Groupname (this has to be the same name as in your hsbConsole) where the hsbcad Elements are added to.
Layout(S): Select the layout where the data needs to be projected on beware that the size of the layout is an A4 or A3.
Page size: Choose a paper size (A4 or A3). Your layouts need to be one of the two sizes.

• Enter a chapter name in the Chapter name field.
• Give it a number in the Chapter nr field (this will be used to sequence the book).

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Now we need to tell the chapter where to get the data from, in the Group name and Source dropdown.

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If you only want to print 2D detail drawings (no hsbcad entities) then leave it blanc in the Group name and select NONE in the Source dropdown. (There is NO NONE)

If you are using hsbcad entities fill in the Groupname (this has to be the same name as in your hsbConsole) and select the desired Source name.

For example: If you want to print hsbWalls, enter in the Group Name field where your Walls are attached to in you group structure of the hsbConsole and select ‘’ElementWallStickFrame’’ in the Source dropdown.

If you want to add a mix of hsbWalls\hsbRoofs\hsbFloors select the ‘’ElementMixed’’ option in the Source dropdown.

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• Now we need to tell the Chapters what Layout (fig1.5) to use in the Layout dropdown. For 2D printing you can use a normal Autocad Layout but for hsbcad Entities you need to use a layout setup with hsbcad Element printing.
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• Select a pagesize in which you want your Book to be printed in (A4 or A3). Of course your Layouts need to be setup for these sizes.
• Annotive scale, this is the scale you want to use for the different scales to print out. If you don’t use this. Leave it empty.
• Colour, This you insert a page in you drawing this color will be added to the page, so that you can recognize easier the type of the chapters.

Note: the block needs to be bylayer otherwise it will get the colour that is belongs to.

• Extra Leaf: Select this if your chapter needs an extra page in front of it. Yes/No

Your Chapters have been made, now we need to create a Book.

This is an example of how it can look like when you have created all you Chapters.

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GJ, where is this saved?

How to Create a Book

Once you have created all your Chapters you can create a book.

You can create multiple books with different Chapter attached to them.

• Select ‘’Design Books’’ from the pulldown menu.
• This will open the ‘’Book’’ dialog box. (Fig.1.6)

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• Show all: If checked, it will show you all the selected and unselected Chapters. (See Fig.1.7 and Fig.1.8)
• Create new book: This will add a New Book.
• Select the ‘’Create new book’’ button.
• Give the Book an appropriate name.
• Select the Chapters (on the left hand side of the dialog box) that you want to see in this book. You have the option to show all the Chapters. If you don’t select this option and you want to add an extra Chapter later on just check ‘’ Show All’’ and you will see all the Chapters again.
• Select Apply and then OK.

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The Book with the Chapters is now ready to use.

But before we can carry on we need to insert the hsbBookplotter Block (hsbBookpage), this has an A3 size.

How to Insert a page

Like the shopdrawing we need to insert a print page (hsbBookpage), this will be an A3 page where you can determine what you want to see on your page.

The hsbBookpage can be found under C:\Program Files\hsbSOFT\ITWhsbcad2013\hsbBookPlotter (at this moment it’s not there yet) Is this right GJ?

You need to be in model space to insert this page.

• Select ‘’Insert page’’ from the pulldown menu.
• It will ask you to select the lower left corner of the drawing detail and then the Upper right corner. Select the area in the drawing of what you want to see in the frame of the page.

• This will open the Insert page dialog box.(Fig.1.9)
• Select and enter all these fields.

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• Description: Enter a detail name, as such so you remember what detail you meant. (example Detail 1)
• Part: Select the Chapter where the drawing belongs to.
• Plot Sequence: Enter a sequence number so it knows how to sort the pages. This is a text field. If you have more than 100 pages enter 001 otherwise the sorting will not show correctly.
• Layout Select the layout where the data needs to be projected on beware that the size of the layout is an A4 or A3.
• Scale: The scale automatically changes depending on the selection points you made when inserting this hsbBookpage. It give you a calculated scale, but you can change this directly in the right scale you want.
• Layer State: … What does this mean GJ?
• Annotive Scale: This is the Annotative scale for dimensioning. Annotation scaling allows you to plot annotation at the same height or size regardless of the viewport zoom scale.
• Level: Is not use at this moment.

• Select OK in the ‘’Insert page’’ dialog box.
• This will place an hsbBookpage in the drawing.
• Repeat as many times as you want.

How to Edit the hsbBookpage

This command allows you to edit the inserted hsbBookpages.

• Select ‘’Edit Page’’ from the pulldown menu.
• Select the desired hsbBookpage you want to Edit.
• This will open the Insert Page dialog box. (Fig.1.10)

Note: if you want to change the Scale, delete the hsbBookpage first and re-insert a new hsbBookpage.

You also have the possibility to rotate the hsbBookpage with the Autocad command ‘’Rotate’’, just enter +90 or -90.

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• Description: Enter a detail name, as such so you remember what detail you meant. (example Detail 02)
• Part: Select the Chapter where the drawing belongs to.
• Plot Sequence: Enter a sequence number so it knows how to sort the pages. This is a text field. If you have more than 100 pages enter 001 otherwise the sorting will not show correctly.
• Layout: Select the layout where the data needs to be projected on beware that the size of the layout is an A4 or A3.
• Scale: The scale automatically changes depending on the selection points you made when inserting this hsbBookpage. It gives you a calculated scale, but you can change this directly in the right scale you want.
• Layer State: …… What does this mean GJ?
• Annotive Scale: Change the desired scale.
• Level: Is not use at this moment.
  

How to see ALL your pages

Once you have inserted all the hsbBookpages, you can view your pages in a Viewer.

The tree view is sorted by Chapters.

• Select ‘’Viewer’’ from the pulldown menu.
• This will open the ‘’page viewer’’ dialog box. (Fig.1.11)

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• If you select a page on the left hand side of this dialog box the viewer will select the right Layout and show the drawing in this Layout.
• On the right hand side of this dialog box the data will be shown of the selected page.
• The Update will also unfreeze all layers in the layout, so everything will be visible.

Now we have made Chapters, a Book and inserted pages we now want to print it. Select Publish from the pulldown menu.

How to Publish the book

Once you have made Chapters, a Book and inserted pages we now want to print it.

• Select Publish from the pulldown menu.
• This will open the PrintBook dialog box. (Fig1.12)

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• Select Book: Select the Book in the pulldown you want to print
• Select the Book you want to print in the Select Book pulldown.
• The Tree view will show all Chapters and pages that will be printed, they all have a checkbox, it’s possible to uncheck them if you desire.
• It’s also possible to create a PDF book by using the freeware print Software from PDFCreator. (http://www.pdfforge.org/pdfcreator)
• Select the Print button; this will be send to the default printer. (printer settings can be changed in the hsbBookplotter\Settings)

In the PDFCreator software it’s possible to put all your pages into 1 PDF document by selecting document\Combine all.

Settings: More details

Next section is a copy of Gerrit Jan Document still need to understand and rewrite this

Layerstate: This is a standard Autocad command; you can open the Layer manager using the ‘_LayerState’ command. Here you can freeze and unfreeze some layers and then you can save the state and give it a name.

This name can be added by a view, before the print/view will be shown, it set the drawing in that saved state. This could be nice if you want use one Plan with different items in that detail on different layers what you can turn off and on.

During printing or viewing, we also have the possibility to update a block with data that will be processed or what you have added.

If you select ‘Setting’ in the pulldown menu and then the Tab Blocks. You can select blocks and tell the program in which Attribute , which data needs to be filled in. You can Select a block, and then select an attribute you want to use for adding the data.

You can use the following Items for the attributes:

Variable                                              Description                                         Write as.

PageNr                                 print actual pagenr                          @(PageNr)

ChapterName                     print name of Chapter                    @(Chaptername)

ChapterNumber                                print number of Chapter                               @(ChapterNumber)

Scale                                      print the Scale                                   @(Scale)

SeqNumber                        print Sequence Number                 @(SeqNumber)

Then you can use also the Drawing Properties from Autocad.

Title                                       The added value                                               @(Dp_Title)

Etc. for other Subject, Author, Keywords, comments

Hyperlink.                            The added value                                               @(Dp_HyperlinkBase)

LastSavedBy                       The added value                                               @(Dp_LastSavedBy)

Revision Number              The added value                                                               @(Dp_RevisionNumber)

Then you have also the possibility to add you own Key Value items.

Here you can add you own variable, and use them again for you blocks to fill these value in.

So I have done an example for Status, you can add here before you print the value like ‘Defintive, Not Definitive etc,’

So for the Attribute you need the fill in @(Status), @(Owner) and the program will replace it with the Value.

Also possible to add hardcode Text like ‘Status = @(Status)’ this wil after update changed in ‘Status = Definitive’.

Settings:

Tab ‘General’:

PublisFile. This file can you create by go to Settings, first Tab, push button Export. This file contains all data what you have added during installation.

For a next new drawing, you can choose this file, and your drawing will be updated by this file. Also can you start to add this data in you template, then every time you start a template, you bookplotter is ready for use.

Select default printer: Choose here the printer you want to use for print, also do you need to add the printer pro layout.

Tab ‘Book’: The 2 buttons are the same as the command in you menu file

Tab ‘Default Layout’:  These items need to be redesign, the idea behind this is that you can select an Element Type, and that you can say for example.

ElementRoof, default first layout to print is Roof, Second layout to print is you Counterbattern, third Layout are the TileLaths. This can then be in sequence like above, but also if you select ‘Keep layouts element together’ then it will print first all the Elements, then all the Counterbatterns, then all the Tilelaths

But the new request is that you can override the layout by length of an element, like all element with Length<2400, must be print by layout. And all element with Length>10000 must be print by other layout, and between them over the default Layout.