The year is wrapping up and the biggest drafting and design event of the year, Autodesk University, is over.  What’s a person to do?  Why don’t you take the time to check out the AUGIndy user group.  We are meeting as usual on the 3rd Tuesday of the month (December 15th) at 5:30 in the new Advanced Solutions, Inc. Indianapolis office.  I’ll be leading the discussion this month with the focus being on the Sheet Set Manager and plotting.  Find out more in the flyer below and on the AUGIndy …

One of the more annoying issues users have with the AutoCAD Sheet Set Manager is trying to delete the .dst file its associated with.  Sometimes it is necessary to erase a sheet set and start over, or maybe part it out into separate sets and it is necessary to eliminate the .dst file due to the rule AutoCAD has about layouts only being associated with a single sheet set.
The first thing you must do is make sure that absolutely no one on the network has that .dst file open or …

Continuing with the potential issues that can arise with the AutoCAD Sheet Set Manager, another issue to be considered is it’s use in an office where multiple people may be working on the same project simultaneously.  Opening files to editing works just the same as without the SSM.  If someone has the drawing open, it is locked for editing and others can open it read-only.  While this is great for controlling the content of your drawings, it also poses an issue for plotting.
If someone has a drawing(s) from the set open …

One more consideration for the use of the AutoCAD Sheet Set Manager is the ability to include a layout within your sheet set.  It is important to realize that a layout can belong to one, and only one, sheet set project.  A single drawing file can have many layouts and those layouts can belong to different sheet sets, but each layout can belong to only one sheet set.
If you work in an office where many users could potentially work on a project together, you don’t want to create a sheet …

The AutoCAD Sheet Set Manager is a beautiful thing.  When everything goes right, it works like a dream and increases productivity exponentially.  I think that the complexity that exists within the AutoCAD SSM is either unknown or taken for granted, because as simple a concept that the SSM can be, it is also a beast that must be tamed and respected.
One of the first and most common issues people have had with the Sheet Set Manager and, specifically, publishing, is the system variable PUBLISHCOLLATE.  The PUBLISHCOLLATE system variable was discussed earlier …