One of the best, if not most used, aspects of the Sheet Set Manager is publishing sets of drawings.  Sure, AutoCAD already has a Publish feature, but the SSM does more and it does it better.  The key to publishing using the Sheet Set Manager is Page Setups.  Start by opening up your drawing template file or any file that you wish to become your template file for plotting purposes – this could be a copy of your corporate standard template or simply a blank drawing.

With the drawing open and in one of the layout tabs, go into the Page Setup Manager.  This can be done multiple ways.  Type the command PAGESETUP at the command line, select “Page Setup” from the print options in the Application Menu, or right-click your current layout tab and select “Page Setup Manager…” from the short cut menu.

Once in the Page Setup Manager dialog begin by selecting the “New…” button to create a new page setup.

From here, select the plotter, paper size, plot area, pen style, orientation and any other options you desire as you normally would from the plot dialog box.  Then select “OK” to return to the Page Setup Manager.

Repeat this process as many times as necessary to create all plotting situations you normally find yourself using.  Refer to the image on the previous page of the Page Setup Manager for an example way of naming your setups so they are easily identifiable.

Save your template file in location that is easy to access for everyone that could be using the Sheet Set Manager as they will need to reference this file as well if they intend to publish in the way I will be describing.

Now, with the Sheet Set Manager open, open the project and right-click it.  Pick “Properties…” from the short cut menu as shown below.

Within the Sheet Set Properties dialog, select the ellipses button on the far right of the “Page setup overrides file” row as seen below.

From here, path to the location of your saved page setup template file and pick the “Open” button to return to the Sheet Set Properties dialog.

You’ll see from here that the new path and file is displayed.  Select “OK” to return to the Sheet Set Manager.

Back in the Sheet Set Manager, right-click the project and roll down to “Publish” and then to “Publish using Page Setup Override”.  Notice how all of the page setups that you created in the template file are now displayed as options with the SSM.  Select any one of these options and AutoCAD will immediately begin publishing the entire set to the parameters created with the page setup selected.  Note that if you select one or more of the layouts in the project, that only the layouts selected will be published when doing this.

Something else to keep in mind is the multitude of other options available within this short cut menu tree.  Notice that you can publish directly to DWF, DWFx, or PDF (AutoCAD 2010 only), or directly to Plotter (will publish each layout with their respective saved page setups).  Depending on your plotter setup, you may also be inclined to “Publish in Reverse Order” allowing for a stack of ‘face-up’ plots.  Also new for AutoCAD 2010, publishing directly to PDF is an included feature without the use of any third-party software such as AcroPlot, Bluebeam, or Adobe Acrobat Professional.  There are many more options there, but I will begin to go into more detail on the “Sheet Set Publish Options…” , “Manage Page Setups…”, and “eTransmit” selections.

Right-click the project or any layout and roll down the short cut menu until you can choose “Sheet Set Publish Options…” from the Publish sub-menu.

All of the information within the Sheet Set Publish Options dialog has to do with DWF files.  Whether you want to save it to DWF or DWFx, have multi-sheet file or multiple single-sheet files for the set, where to save the file(s) to and what kind of drawing and document information you want included in the DWF.  I really like working with DWFs over PDFs and .PLT files for many reasons, but the biggest are file size, ability to review, and ease of use between Autodesk products.  When you are done, select “OK”.

Once again, roll down the short cut tree of the project to “Manage Page Setups…” from the Publish sub-menu.

This dialog box should look quite familiar.  As a matter of fact, this is the Page Setup Manager for the template file you have set for the SSM project.  It is a direct link to that file and any changes you make within this dialog will directly affect the template file itself.  Add, Modify, or Import any page setups you wish to be included or changed.  The process is identical to the way you had previously.  When you are done, click “Close”.

So we’ve gone over hard copy publishing with the SSM and digital documentation with DWFs.  However, there are many situations that call for the source files themselves.  You may consider this to be the drawings, images, and external references within a project, but others may also include pen setting .CTB files, font files, .DST sheet set files, and even line type files.  When the need for these items beckons, it is time for the eTransmit to shine.  You can simply type ETRANSMIT at the command line or go through the application menu to accomplish this, but using the Sheet Set Manager is best when dealing with an entire set of drawings and gives you additional options.  Roll down to “eTransmit…” on the short cut menu for the current project you intend to package.

When you select “OK”, you will see an image like the one below as AutoCAD scans the files.  It will then create .zip file with all of the selected files enclosed.

Once AutoCAD is done gathering the information (and you have made any changes that it suggests in the process) you will be brought to the Create Transmittal dialog as shown below (which I have duplicated to show the different files to be including in the transmittal).  A list of layouts to include or remove from the package is available under the “Sheets” tab.  The drawings, x-refs, images, and any support files are available to select or remove from the “Files Tree” tab.  You can also include any additional files, change the way the .zip file is created, and include notes with the file through this dialog.

If you eTransmit from the Sheet Set Manager as opposed to the command line or application menu, it will automatically pull in all of the drawings in the sheet set, all referenced files for any of the drawings in the sheet set, and any .dst file used in addition to the .dwt template file used within the sheet set project.  When the recipient of the Zip file extracts the contents, they can open the .dst file from AutoCAD and it will automatically path the drawing files at their current location on their server or pc.

As you can see, this can be a very powerful tool for working with subcontractors on a project or maybe even satellite offices in your company that can’t connect to each others’ servers.  Something to note, however, is that if you have a template file that contains settings, styles, or trade secret customized objects, don’t include that file with the transmittal.  That is the kind of information you don’t want getting into the hands of current or future competitors.

That’s it for plotting and sharing resources within the Sheet Set Manager, but there’s still more.  I know this subject is carrying on a little longer due to missed posts throughout the month, but we all know that the summer is the busiest time of the year for projects.  I’ll keep the posts coming, you keep coming back to read them and give some feedback.