Smart Template
Reference Guide.

Pen Sets in Archicad control the colour & weight of all available pens used to draw elements. Since Archicad 10 it has been possible to create multiple Pen Sets, enabling the user to quickly change the appearance of elements (colour and line weight) by simply applying a different Pen Set to a view.

There are two basic approaches to using the Pen Table in Archicad.
The first is to assign pens using the same principle as conventional drafting where there are around 7 pens (but can be more) with increasing weight (a la Rapidograph pens) – this approach is commonly know as a Pen-by-Weight system.
The second is to leverage the 255 pen depth of the Pen Table to assign certain pens to certain functions (e.g. Pen 4 for Structural Cut Lines) – commonly known as a Pen-by-Function system.

Smart Template uses a Pen-by-Function system whereby elements of certain categories are assigned specific pens which are not shared with elements of a different category.

Whilst this is slightly more complicated than a simple Pen-by-Weight approach using only a few pens, this allows for much greater control over the appearance of elements in various forms of documentation.

A few examples of functions this system enables are:

• Visual distinction between elements when modelling, e.g. all structural elements have red outlines;
• Adjustment of pen weights for various element types based on the drawing type, e.g. grey out everything but the concrete on concrete setout drawings, beef up pen weights in 1:5 details, etc;
• Adjustment of pen weight for elements whilst keeping annotation weights the same across scales, e.g you don’t usually want to fatten your leader lines at the same time as building elements which may be using the same pen – Pen-by-Function splits annotation pens from element pens;
• Generation of special Drawing types, e.g. Fire Compartment Plans – use dedicated background pens to change appearance of fire rated walls between regular and Fire Compartment drawings;