Specifying the Location of a Pen Table File
When creating plot files, by default, Creo Parametric uses a pen table file table.pnt in the working directory. If table.pnt is not found in the working directory, then Creo Parametric looks for the file in <creo_loadpoint>/common_files/<datecode>/text/table.pnt.
You can override this behavior by specifying the location of the pen table file in a plotter configuration file (.pcf) or in the config.pro file using the following syntax: pen_table_file<path/filename.pnt>.
When you specify a Creo Parametric entity for plotting, the system assigns it a pen based on the default system color corresponding to this entity type. When it plots entities, it uses the line width and line font associated with a particular color. For example, the system uses pen #1 to plot all entities that appear in Creo Parametric using the Geometry index (white by default) and have the same line width and thickness.
If your plotter supports eight plotter pens, and you want to use them for plotting, set the configuration file option use_8_plotter_pens to yes. The following table illustrates the default pen mapping that occurs. A plotter that supports four pens uses the first four pens listed in the table.
Pen Number
System Color
Mapping
1
Geometry
Curve
Manufacturing volume
Quilt
Preselection highlight
Preview geometry
Secondary preview geometry
Visible geometry (plot as solid lines, except where noted):
Cross-section cutting plane lines: plot as phantom lines
Cross-section cutting plane arrows and text
Drawing format and boundary
Tag text
Centerline line font with white color
2
Letter
Datum
All items plot as solid lines (except where noted):
Dimension lines
Leaders
Axes and centerlines: plot as centerlines
Geometric tolerance lines
All text (except cross-section text)
Balloon notes
Cross-hatching
Centerline line font with yellow color
Brown portion of datum planes
3
Hidden Line
Hidden lines: plot as dashed lines, phantom font
4
Primary highlight
Selected
Secondary selected
All items plot as solid lines:
Spline surface grid (does not plot in drawings)
5
Sheet metal
Sheet metal color entities
6
Sketched Curve
Sketcher section entities
7
Secondary highlight
Toggled sections, grayed dimensions and text, dimmed tangent edges
Dark gray portion of datum planes
8
Edge highlight
Spline surface grid