Unable to consistently publish black and white PDF files in AutoCAD

Autodesk Support

Apr 11, 2025

Products and versions covered

Issue:

When publishing a drawing to PDF in AutoCAD, the output is in color when it should be black and white. Additionally, the following may be observed:

  • Initial plots come out in black in white per the plot style, but subsequent plots are in color.
  • The Sheet Set Manager or the batch plot function are being used to publish to PDF.
  • Plotting or publishing is being done in the background.
  • Layout Page Setups have been configured to use a custom plot style file (.ctb) and/or a custom a plotter (.pc3).
  • The plot command does print individual sheets black and white initially.
  • A generic plotting warning is displayed in lower right hand corner when issue occurs, "Plotted with Warning(s)" or "Incompatible or Missing plot style."
  • When plots are in color, the expanded warning message shows the profile ID as <<Unnamed Profile>>, even though there is different profile set. Furthermore, the <<Unnamed Profile>> reappears while plotting even after it has been deleted.
  • The issue happens randomly.

Causes:

The background instance of AutoCAD (acad.exe) is looking for the generic AutoCAD path to the Plot Styles folder. If only Civil 3D is installed, the AutoCAD path will not exist and the plot style will not be found.

Solution:

To fix this issue try one of the following:

Manually create the regular AutoCAD directory path for Plot Styles and copy the CTBs/STBs into the folder

The default AutoCAD path for Plot Styles is:

  • C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Autodesk\AutoCAD 20xx\Rxx.x\enu\Plotters\Plot Styles

The 'x' values vary by AutoCAD release.


Run updates

Install the latest updates for AutoCAD by checking the Autodesk Desktop App or by downloading the update through your Autodesk Account.


Set the plot style 

Enter the STYLESMANAGER command in AutoCAD to open the Plot Styles folder and make sure the .ctb file is there. Then double-check the page setup in the layouts to verify the plot style file is found for each sheet.

Alternatively, select the monochrome .ctb in the page setup for each layout.


Set the Plotter Name

For each sheet set the plotter/printer name and Apply to Layout. See: To Create a Named Page Setup.

Change plot to single core or multiple core when plotting in background

  1. On the command line type BGCOREPUBLISH then hit Enter.

  2. If the setting is set to 1 put 0, if the setting is 0, put 1 then hit enter.

Note:  By default, background publishing utilizes multiple cores of your processor to improve the performance of output (see: BGCOREPUBLISH (System Variable)).


Plot in the Foreground

Set the BACKGROUNDPLOT variable to 0 to Plot and Publish in the Foreground.

 

Plot files stored on a network

If plot files are stored on a network location, network connection disruptions during plotting may be responsible. To test this, copy printer configuration (.pc3) and plot style table (.ctb or .stb) files to a local location and path to them. 


Reset user settings

If the previous suggestions have not worked, reset the user settings per: How to reset AutoCAD to defaults


Multiple AutoCAD installations

If you have multiple AutoCAD products with the same version installed on your system, try:

  1. Copy any plot-related files used in Civil 3D like .pc3 or .ctb files to the default location for AutoCAD.

  2. To determine the default location in AutoCAD, open up AutoCAD and type STYLESMANAGER.

Products:

AutoCAD Products;

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