Greyscale Fills/Gradients/Hatches/Etc. when publishing

[Josh K]

There should be a checkbox to check when publishing in black & white to allow fills and gradients to become greyscaled when publishing sheets.

Currently, I have to use the "dot" pattern to achieve different shades in something like a wall fill when publishing in black & white or use a grey fill and change all classes to be black when exporting in colour.

This should have to be a work-around..

Edited April 5, 2016 by Josh K

[Art V]

A workaround could be to use viewport overrides, where you create 1 viewport for colour use and one for B/W where you set all colours to black except the fills etc. you want to be greyscale.

Another option could be to use a PDF printer and use that printer's options to print to greyscale.

But a greyscale option in the publish command would probably be a welcome option.

So +1 from me on this requrest.

[PVA - Admin]

I actually thought it was supposed to do that already, is it not on your end?

When I add a bunch of shapes and give them assorted colored tile fills that include gradients, then enable Black and White Only, publishing creates greyscaled gradients and fills. Example attached, the first page in color and the second with B/W Only enabled. (Of course, it's always possible I am misunderstanding the wish.)

[Art V]

When I set the viewport to B/W only it gives exactly that, no grayscale to be seen. Nor is there an option in the PDF publish settings to publish in grayscale.

At least not in the viewport, and I'd think the viewport should give a reasonably good impression of how things will look when using publish.

[PVA - Admin]

Do you have this circled option in the Publish menu? That should allow you to specify B/W for specific exported sheets. If you have B/W Only enabled for the whole document then all items added to the Publish queue will default to that setting, but you can switch them to color individually.

Can you attach the color and BW results you get? Screenshot is fine it doesn't have to be the file itself.

[Art V]

Jim,

When using the BW option in the publish dialog as per your screen capture I still get B/W only and not grayscale.

Screenshot of publish setting and the vwx document and published pdf are attached below.

[PVA - Admin]

OH for solid colors. I apologize, I was thinking you had gradient or other fill types. Yes, solid colors will either pick black or white, never shades of grey. That's something we need in general.

If this ability gets added to Vectorworks as a preference (document, quickpref, export pref, however it comes), it'll be pushed through and be usable by Publish as well. Adding this thread to that request.

[Art V]

Yes, for solid colours it would be useful as well to be able to print greyscale.

For now (meant for Josh) a workaround is to create a gradient to mimic a solid colour.

E.g. yellow is R255 G255 B0 and will print as white

If one makes a gradient of R254 R254 B0 to R255 G255 B0 it will look yellow but it can be printed as greyscale.

It will even show as greyscale when the viewport is set to BW.

(see attached file)

In the long run this is an unsustainable workaround though if a variety of solid colours is used as it will become increasingly unwieldy.

[Josh K]

Thanks for clarifying Art! I should have been more thorough and tested gradients without assuming that they would not greyscale.. They aren't something I use much.

Solid colours are the big one in particular and should follow suite in their ability to be greyscaled whether it's a publish option or built-in.