AutoCAD uses plot styles to control how CAD data is displayed when plotted. There are two types of plot style tables that can be used. The first are colour dependent plot style tables, the second are named plot style tables.

Colour dependent plot style tables (CTB) are more commonly used over named plot style tables (STB). CTB uses an objects colour to determine characteristics such as line weight. I am going to create a CTB file that will control the display of plotted elements within a file. Start by creating layers within a new dwg and assigning different colours to them. There are 256 plot styles in a CTB file, one for each colour available in AutoCAD.

Draw lines in the dwg each on its own layer.

We now need to create our CTB file so that we can print the lines out with different thicknesses and colours. There are a few ways of doing this, i used the stylesmanager command to open the Plot Styles folder (the location where all of the default AutoCAD plot styles are saved) when the dialog opens there is a shortcut that allows you to add a new plot style. Click on the Add-A-Plot Style Table Wizard.

On the Add Plot Style Table dialog click Next

Make sure Start from Scratch is selected and click Next.

In this example we are going to configure a CTB file so make sure Colour-Dependent Plot Style Table is selected.

Enter a file name for the plot style and click Next.

On the next screen is where we get to configure the table so that our colours print out different thicknesses etc. Click on the Plot Style Table Editor button and then select Table View (I find this view easiest to see the properties on the CTB file). Here in the table view you can see the properties that you can define within the CTB file. In this example we are going to change the Colour of all of our lines to Black and gradually increase the thickness of each colour under the line weight column in 0.0500 mm increments. You can right click on a column and select Apply to All Styles to apply your settings to every column.

Once you have finished click Save & Close and then Finish. We have now created a CTB file that we can apply to our drawing when printing. To see the results of the CTB file go to File > Print. In the Plot – Model dialog make sure Plot with plot styles is checked and under the plot style table (pen assignments) select the CTB file you created earlier.

You can see from the preview that the line colours are now all Black an that they gradually increase in thickness.