Frequently
Asked
Questions:

This can happen when any of the menus/submenus are updated or changed in any way.  

The real easy way to fix that is by deleting the PSTOOL.MNC & PSTOOL.MNR files from the PSTOOL main directory. After deleting these files the menu needs to recompile.  You can achieve this by closing any AutoCAD sessions you may have open & then reopening AutoCAD.  AutoCAD automatically recompiles menus at program startup.

WORD OF CAUTION:  Do not delete the PSTOOL.MNU, PSTOOL.MNL, nor the PSTOOL.MNS files.

It may not be obvious to the user, but additional settings and commands exist within PSTool. For example:

CAPSLOCK : is now turned ON as a default setting.  This was done to further setup AutoCAD & PSTool to be ready the way you like it to be at startup. If your preference is to have CAPSLOCK-OFF at startup then just go to the 'PSTool | Configuration | Capslock - Toggle On/Off' menu option to turn it off.  It will stay off on current and all future sessions until you manually turn it on again. 

ADDING/SUBTRACTING NUMBERS : Using the '+', '-' keys you can add/subtract a series of strings.  This is very handy when adding up items on a schedule (such as an electrical load schedule).  HINT : It is essential that strings be all numeric without commas as a thousand separator.  The resulting number is displayed in a message box, but with an additional feature that allows you to select a text entity where to place the total.  The preference settings allow you to select number of decimal places to use in the inserted text.  

COPY MULTIPLE : We have all had the need to take an entity (or a series of entities) and do a multiple copies over a given distance. Well the Copy Multiple ('CM') allows you to do just that. Yes, I know you can do that with the standard COPY command, but with CM you do not have to determine the distance and direction each and every time - you do it once at the beginning and then just hit ENTER for as many copies that you need.    

Yes there sure is! As a matter of fact members can view the PSTool CADD Standards Manual  online (password required). Check in Appendix 'D' for all the tutorials. This section has several tutorials, including "How to Setup Paperspace Sheets.". 

New to PSTool 3.0 is a menu called 'LYR_STATE'  This menu is in a way a direct replacement for the sheet menu.  This was changed for two reasons.  First - AutoCAD 2002 will incorporate the Layer Manager (you might remember it from the Bonus Tools days). With this addition, AutoCAD uses layer states as an integral part of AutoCAD. The old PSTool 'sheet' menu technically manipulated Layer State setting - therefore to stay consistent with AutoCAD, it was renamed.  But if you use PaperSpace you will see the 'SHEET' menu again, this time in a different way.

Which leads me to the second point. According to the PSTool CADD Standards Manual   a sheet relates to the 'SHEET' file which represents a plotted sheet. This sheet usually consist of viewports and is a layout sheet composed in PaperSpace. The use of 'SHEET' as a menu for a ModelSpace 'BASE' files was inconsistent with the wording in the PSTool C.S.M. and was therefore renamed to more closely be what it represents. 

Don't confuse the new 'SHEET' menu to be the same as it used to be. It performs basically the same functions (setting up sheets) but in a very different way then it used to. If you use both 'BASE' (MS) & 'SHEET' (PS) files you will see both menus as they relate to the BASE/SHEET Mode of the individual drawing file.  PSTool will transparently swap between the two menus as required.

There were several symbols whose definition has been updated. Inadvertently the symbols were updated, but the slide library was not. For this reason, they would not appear correctly. This has been addressed and has been incorporated into the next release of PSTool - version 3.0 due out in March 2001.  Please contact our office to get the latest updates.  If you still experience this problem please use the Tech Support link & report this issue for resolution.

This problem is caused by one of two reasons. First, the user may have inadvertently purged the drawing, thereby deleting the correct dimstyle. This menu option not only set the layer information for this Layer State, but sets additional variables, including 'Dimstyle.'  Second, the drawing file may have originated from a source other than the PSTool Template.  This can be because the file was a result of a WBLOCK operation or it may have come from outside sources. 

Either way the problem can only be fixed by adding the DimStyle definition. The easiest way of accomplishing this is by inserting  the PSTool.DWG into the current file.  Steps are to insert the drawing file (using the standard Insert command) and before specifying an insertion point, cancel the operation.  The file will not be inserted as a block, but all the definitions (layers, styles, dimstyles, linetypes,etc.) will become a part of the current drawing. In AutoCAD 2000 you may want to use the Drawing Explorer and Drag-n-Drop just the appropriate 'dimstyles' to your current drawing file. 

These are standard AutoCAD issues, and do not relate to - or - were caused by PSTool, BUT I have added a 'Fix Common AutoCAD Errors' menu option to the PSTool menu that will address not only these errors, but several other common AutoCAD error messages.  Try using them to fix your problem. 

Now to answer your question & to give a description of the new menu items: 

Non-Coplanar Issue - the reason you are getting this error is because one of the two entities you are trying to chamfer does not have a zero elevation in the z-axis. Even a factor of .01" above 0'-0" will give you this error. This is common when a 3-D model was generated on this file or the file was worked on by SOFTDESK, ARCHITECTURAL DESKTOP or ARCHT by KETIV.  These third party programs do understand 3-D and place entities above the 0'-0" plane on the z-axis.  WORD OF CAUTION: If your drawing is going to be used in conjunction with these programs or you are generating a 3-D model in this drawing DO NOT use the 'fix' as it will place ALL entities down at zero for the z-axis.  But if all you do is 2-D work (and do not plan on working with SOFTDESK, ARCHITECTURAL DESKTOP or ARCHT by KETIV on this drawing) then go ahead and use it. You will not be upsetting anything.  

Restore Alphabetical Order - This is controlled by the MaxSort AutoCAD environment setting. You get this when you have more than 200 layers in the drawing (which is common when several XREFs are attached to the file). AutoDesk, by default, sets 200 as a limit on the number of layers a user should have. (Not that they limit you to this, but it is what AutoDesk considered reasonable - We know better!) But using the fix will increment the variable up by a factor of 100. So, for example, you have 500 layers (wow!!) in your drawing file & the standard setting are at 200. You will need to click on the menu item (3) times in order to reach that level (TIP - look at the status line and it will tell you what the new setting is). Keep it as low as possible since the more AutoCAD has to reserve for sorting - the longer some commands will seem to take. Also if your system runs low on memory the higher the number - the more memory the system will use up.

Hatch Too Dense Error - This one is a bit tricky in that the fix works 90% of the time.  The  reason this happens is that hatch patterns are created with different sizes in mind and sometimes the pattern definition is too dense for the scale factor you are using.  Most of the time setting the 'MaxHatch'  up a bit solves the problem, but other times it does not.  This is where the fix fits in - but like I said, it fixes the problem 90% of the time.

Cannot View other Viewports - AutoDesk set the number of viewports to 8 by default. Most of the time this is not a problem, but on very involved drawings with many different scales & views you may need more than 8 viewports.  You will find that if you add another viewport, it will go blank. Using the fix you will increment the 'MAXACTVP' AutoCAD environment setting by a factor of three.