Printing Documents with Multiple Sheets

This task explains how to print one or more sheets inserted in your document. In addition to .CATDrawing documents, this functionality is available for V4 documents (.model) and multi-page image formats (such as TIFF, JPEG, BMP, etc.).

You can print .CATDrawing documents containing OpenType fonts (OTF) and this, whatever the format you select for the output: HPGL, HPGL2, CGM, PS, and so on.
OpenType fonts are supported in a WYSIWYG mode based on a specific font rendering that uses multiple lines and fill polygons to draw the font.
For more information on the OpenType font format, refer to About Fonts.
Open the document PrintMultiDocs.CATDrawing.

  1. Select File > Print (or press CTRL+P) to display the Print dialog box.

  2. Click the Multi-Documents tab:

  3. To print to a file instead of a printer (this file will contain your image printout and will be saved with a .prn extension), select the Print to file check box then enter a file name or click File Name...

    When printing multiple sheets to a file, click More... to open the File Name Selection dialog box which displays the file name you have entered in step 3:

    You have two options:

    • To print all your sheets to a single file, select the Print to one file check box.
    • To store each image printout in a separate file, i.e. generate as many .prn files as there are sheets, use the File name definition box. Each generated .prn file must be printed individually. See Printing to a File for more information.
    • If you do not use the "#" character in the .prn file name, a single .prn file is created even if the Print to one file check box has not been selected and only the last sheet is printed (whichever option has been selected in the Range area).
    • the number of documents to be printed is stored in the ${CATPRT_DOC_SHEETS_NUM} variable.

  4. In the Range area, indicate whether you want to print All sheets or only the Active sheet by selecting the appropriate option.

  5. If you clicked Sheet numbers, you can click Sheets... to open the Image Selection dialog box which lets you select the sheets you wish to print:

    By default, all the sheets are selected but you can deselect the sheets you do not want to print by clicking them in the list. Reset lets you re-select all the sheets displayed, if needed.

  6. Click Preview... to display the Print Preview window.

  7. Click Options... to access the Options dialog box.

  8. Click Page Setup... to display the Page Setup dialog box:

    Selecting the Use image format check box automatically activates No fitting (in the Position and Size area under the Layout tab) to leave the document to be printed to its original size.
    In the Print dialog box, the value User appears as the current document format and any further interaction defining the position, size and layout of the image to be printed is disabled.
    When the image format is too large, this check box is grayed out and a short help message is displayed (its contents depends on the Rendering quality factor you set):
    • For Low, Medium or High quality factors, a non-null dpi value might exist that allows you to print the document. If such a dpi value exists, it is indicated in the help message.
    • For the Customized quality factor, you just need to set the corresponding dpi value to be able to select the Use image format check box.

  9. Click the Layout tab to select the required options for page setup, etc.

  10. Select the number of Copies.

  11. Select the Print Area.

    Document Area prints the area that has been previously defined for each sheet of your .CATDrawing document in the Drafting workbench. This area is defined using the Print Area option displayed in the sheet properties. For detailed information, refer to "Editing Sheet Properties" in the Version 5 - Interactive Drafting User's Guide.

  12. Select the Tiling option then click Define... to cut the image and print it on several pages.

  13. If you print to a 3D PLM printer, you can click Properties... to access the printer properties:

    Refer to Adding a Printer for detailed information.

  14. When finished, click OK or Apply + OK in the Print dialog box to print the document and close the dialog box. 
 

About V4 Sheets
  A utility named CATPrtSheet lets you print information on your V4 sheets from the command line.
 

  1. Open a Command Prompt window.

  2. Change to the installation folder:

    C:\Program Files\Dassault Systemes\Bn\intel_a\code\bin  (on Windows)

    or

    /usr/DassaultSystemes/Bn/OS_a/code/command/  (on UNIX)

    (where n is the current release number)

  3. Enter the following command line:

    CATPrtSheet sheet_name.sheet output_file.txt

    where sheet_name is the name of the .sheet file and output_file is the name and path of the text file containing information on the V4 sheet.

    For instance:

    CATPrtSheet sheet1.sheet e:\users\output.txt
    The name of the .sheet file must only contain alphanumerical characters. If this is not the case, rename the file before running the utility.

  4. Access the folder in which the output file has been generated then open this file to see the sheet-related information.