Lineweights Plot Thicker or Lighter than Expected in AutoCAD

Lineweights Plot Thicker or Lighter than Expected in AutoCAD

Issue:

When plotting to PDF, printing to a physical printer, or publishing from AutoCAD, object lineweights display thicker, thinner, darker, or lighter than displayed in the drawing. 

Causes:

There are several causes for this behavior, including:
  1. Plot lineweights is enabled.
  2. Scale lineweights is enabled.
  3. Lineweights in the drawing are set to a thick width.
  4. A lineweight override is set for specific objects.
  5. Drawing is set to plot by color.
  6. Quality of the PDF being plotted.
  7. Lineweights or transparency settings in the plot style table (CTB or STB).
  8. The default setting for lines is not set to 0.

Solution:

Try one or more of the following to resolve this issue:

Lineweight display looks different in AutoCAD from the printout or plot

This might be due to the lineweight display being deactivated: 
  1. Type LWDISPLAY in the AutoCAD command line to toggle the lineweight display.
  2. Type ON to switch the variable on.

Turn off lineweight options in plot or page setup

In the Plot or Page Setup dialogue window, turn off the following two settings:
  1. Plot object lineweights.
  2. Scale lineweights.
On Windows:
User-added image
 
On macOS:  
User-added image

It's a good idea to save the page setup when you are done and apply it to all the layouts in your template so when you publish your jobs the settings will be applied automatically on all pages.

Change lineweight to the desired thickness

  1. On the ribbon in AutoCAD, click the Home tab  >  Layers Panel  >  Layer Properties. 
  2. In the Layer Properties Manager, under the Lineweight column, click the lineweight to change.
  3. In the Lineweight dialog window, choose the lineweight to use as the default for objects on that layer.

Set the object lineweight to be controlled by the layer

  1. Select the objects.
  2. Type PROPERTIES in the command line and press Enter.
  3. Under the Lineweight drop-down, select ByLayer.
Note:  Blocks and Xrefs will need to be opened to change the lineweight for objects within them. 

Check that the layer is using the correct lineweight

  1. Select the objects.
  2. Type PROPERTIES in the command line and press Enter.
  3. Under the Lineweight drop-down, verify that it is set to ByLayer.
  4. Enter LAYER .
  5. In the Layer Manager, go to the relevant layer.
  6. Set the desired lineweight there.

Set the drawing so that object lineweight is controlled by the layer

  1. With no objects selected, type PROPERTIES and press Enter.
  2. Under the Lineweight drop-down, select ByLayer.
User-added image

Change the lineweight for dimension lines

  1. Check which dimstyle is used for the dimension which has thick lines.
  2. Enter DIMSTYLE in the AutoCAD command line.
  3. Select the corresponding dimstyle.
  4. Change the lineweight to a thinner style.
  5. Press OK.
  6. Some dimensions might need to be created new.

Select a PDF plotter or settings with higher plot quality

Plot using the AutoCAD PDF (High Quality) plotter or adjust the setting of the selected driver for the highest quality plot. 

Lineweights or transparency in the plot style table

Set the plotted lineweight and transparency in the desired plot style table (see  To Set the Plotted Lineweights ).
  1. Type PLOT in the command line.
  2. Press the button next to the Plot Style Table to edit the CTB file. This example edits the  Grayscale.ctb file.
  3. In the Form View Tab, edit the Lineweight for color 1 as desired. For example: set it to 0.7000 mm.
  4. Press the Save As option to make a new Plot Style Table.
  5. Name the new Plot Style Table file. For example,  Grayscale_edited.ctb .
  6. Press Save and Close.
  7. Press ESC to exit the plot layout window. 
  8. Type PLOT again and change the Plot Style Table to  Grayscale_edited.ctb
  9. Click OK.
Image_2020-11-13_16-58-26.png
Edit lineweight dialog

Change line thickness settings in the PDF viewer

Select a PDF plotter or settings with higher plot quality.
Try deactivating or activating both these settings:
  1. Smooth line art.
  2. Enhance thin lines.
User-added image

Check the settings of the Default lineweight value for Polylines

  1. Type LWDEFAULT to command line and Enter.
  2. Change the value to 0.
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