I think there is a need for this quick post about publishing before taking a few days away for the holiday weekend.  Before that, though, let me say U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!  I’m just in the Independence Day spirit I guess.
PUBLISHCOLLATE is an important system variable to consider when plotting.  It can affect not only your PLT files and PDF files,  but the order and interleafing of plots coming off the machine.
With PUBLISHCOLLATE set to “0″, a sheet set is processed one layout at a time with separate PLT files being …

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 …

Now that the commands and system variables associated with the SSM are known, let’s take a look at the components of it.  The Sheet Set Manager is formatted as a palette and functions the same as one.  You can dock, anchor, auto-hide, adjust transparency, and the size of it as needed.

The SSM consists of three tabs-Sheet List, Sheet Views, and Model Views.  The Sheet List tab displays an ordered list of sheets.  This list can be manipulated into different orders, subsets can be created for documents divided by their department, …

The Sheet Set Manager is nothing new in the AutoCAD world, having been around since the release.  However, it has been my understanding that a large percentage of firms haven’t utilized this great tool.  With the increasing popularity of AutoCAD’s vertical programs such as Civil 3D, it appears that more and more people are using sheet sets, but maybe aren’t using them to their fullest.  The following text is a description given to the Sheet Set Manager by AutoCAD:
“A sheet set is an organized collection of sheets from several drawing …