Printing drawings without opening

Hi,
Is there a way to plot a drawing without opening? I was trying ObjectDBX, but it I get a message that it doesn't support ploting. Any help will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Mike

 

Fastlook can do it. AutoVue does it. I believe they both have an API.

 

Sorry, but I don't understand what you are talking about. I want to write something in VB that helps me plot files without opening them.

Here's the code that I came up with, but which errors : "Object doesn't support this entity or method"

Sub PlotDWG()
Dim dbxDoc As Object 'AxDbDocument
Set dbxDoc = AcadApplication.GetInterfaceObject("ObjectDBX.AxDbDocument")
dbxDoc.Open "C:\Temp\SD.dwg"
dbxDoc.Plot.PlotToDevice
Set dbxDoc = Nothing
End Sub

 

In order to print you MUST have some application that recognizes the file
format that OPENS the file and prints it from that application. Be it ODBX
(which you've found cannot plot), Autocad, Autoview or Fastlook as Joe
suggested, Word or whatever.

What is the purpose of plotting without opening?
If it's to save time, could you make the Acad session invisible to the user
and open in that session? I believe that a drawing will open faster in that
state.

 

Interesting idea.
How would you make AutoCAD "invisible" to the user??

Would you use something like this:
Shell "e:\temp\drawing.dwg", vbMinimizedNoFocus

 

You should probably use CreateObject followed by a call to the Open method of the returned object. If you feel that you need to keep the Shell then you might try this (corrected for your install path) for giggles:

Shell """c:\Program Files\AutoCAD 2005\acad.exe"" ""e:\temp\drawing.dwg"" /Automation"

 

Yeah... I would probably use CreateObject, but the point I was trying to get
across was the "vbMinimizedNoFocus" to make AutoCAD "invisible" to the user.
Not sure if that's the best way to go about doing it or not.

 

If your using VB you can use
acadapp.Visible = False