Selecting several DWG's and printing using right mouse button 1

[chews]

Hello all,

We are working with ACAD 2004 LT. I want to be able to open up Windows Explorer ("My Computer"), select a bunch of drawings (DWG), right mouse and click print. Is this possible?

Currently I am selecting a bunch of drawings, right mousing and clicking on open (as I get an error message when I try to hit print) then clicking on the plot button for each drawing. This is too slow for me

Oh btw the error message I get says "This file does not have a program associated with it for performing this action. Create an association in the Folder Options control panel." Not sure what that means or how to create the associated file to make that operation work.

Thanks in advance for your advice!

 

[DrPipes]

To create an association in XP go to Control Panel, Folder Options, click on the File Types tab and the New button.

Just from memory, 98 and 2000 are similar, just look around. You can also look in the help file.. do a word search for file association.

I've never had any luck getting acad to plot that way. You will probably have to get a batch plotting program. Look on cadalog.com or cadalyst's website. Never looked for LT stuff, but they probably have something.

 

[MarauderX]

In my experience, you have to open 1 drawing in autocad first, then go to Windows Explorer to right-click-print. It will close the current drawing you opened, open the new ones 1 at a time, print, and then close it. It may stop at the 'plot' dialogue box to ask if it's what you want to send, and may require that you just click on the OK box if it's ready to go. It's the way I have always done it when not using batch plotting.

 

[neffers]

I am not sure if AutoCad LT has this feature, but in AutoCad 2004, if you go into the AutoCad 2004 folder where the .exe file is located, I believe there is a file called something like btplot.exe (or something similar). This is a batch plot program that you can select a bunch of files and click print. Then you can also save that list for future use if desired. I created a shortcut on my desktop and that is what I use when I need to plot a set of drawings.

neffers

 

[neffers]

Just a quick follow-up now that I am at work, the name of the batch plot utility file is batchplt.exe.

Neffers

 

[chews]

Thank you to all who have replied. It turns out that "neffers" was on the right track. We spoke with Autodesk and found out that because we bought only the upgrade licenses, there is no batch plot. It is only in the full version of ACAD. Bummer!

Anyhow, one of our engineers was able to write a script that does what I needed.

Again, thanks all to those who responded.