Introduction

You can produce printed output of your whole design or part of it at any time. You can create interim print files on disk and later submit them to a printer. You also can send printed output directly to a printer.

Creating a print file from the Print dialog box

You can create a print file on disk that can be submitted to the appropriate printer at a later stage. These disk files can be created from the Print dialog box.

To create a print file on disk

From the File menu, choose Print.
or
Press <CTRL-P>.
The Print dialog box opens.

From the Printer and Paper Size option menu, choose Bentley Driver.

(Optional) Click the Select Printer Driver icon to select another printer driver file.
If you choose “printer.plt”, then printing defaults to the Windows Printer and the print will be sent directly to that printer (unless you have picked “print to file” in the Windows Print dialog box, which is opened by selecting Configure Windows Printer).

(Optional) Prior to creating your print you can do any or all of the following:

Action	For more information, see
Adjust the Page Setup to: change the paper size on which the design is to be printed. rotate the printed output 90° in the printable area.	Setting the page size and orientation
Adjust the Print Layout to: change the scale or printed output size. position the printed output on the sheet.	Print layout criteria
Adjust the appearance of the printed output, add a border and/or comment.	Setting print attributes
Select a pen table for print resymbolization.	Pen tables

In the Print dialog box´s icon bar, click the Print icon.
or
From the Print dialog box´s File menu, choose Print.

If the printer driver “printer.plt” was selected, printed output is sent to the system print manager.
If another printer driver is selected and its default_outfile record is not set to a port or other printer, then the Save Print As dialog box opens and continue to next step.

To name, create and save the print file, use the Save Print As dialog box just as you would the Save As dialog box. The default print file extension is “.000” unless otherwise specified in a default_extension record in the printer driver. If a numeric default extension is used, such as “.000,” the extension proposed in the dialog box automatically increments with the creation of each additional print file having the same filename (for example, “bracket.000, bracket.001, bracket.002…).

A number of printing variables can be used to let you track printer usage and other details regarding printing.

When you create a print from MicroStation, certain configuration variables are set for each print. Using the values of these configuration variables, a macro can be written that writes to a log file, recording the values of these variables. This information can be used for accounting purposes. For more information about Printing accounting variables, see User configuration variables.