The Plan/Profile Sheet Layout tool can be activated either from the pulldown menus (GEOPAK Road > Plans Preparation > Plan and Profile Sheets), or from the Plans Preparation toolbox (shown at right).

Both the design centerline chain and the design profile must be visible in the same dgn file in order for this procedure to work. This requirement can be satisfied by either (1) drawing both the chain and the profile into a single dgn file, or (2) if the chain and profile are in separate files, simply referencing one file to the other. Typically the second option is what is used.

In order to complete the setup procedure you will need to know the scale you want the plan section of the P&P sheets to be drawn to. The following table outlines the available combinations of plan view scale and profile vertical distortion that are commonly used in CFL. Also included in the table for reference are the length of centerline per sheet for the various scales. (Note: "Vertical distortion" refers to the amount the profile is stretched in the vertical direction on the P&P sheet.)

Stations Per Sheet	Plan View Scale	Profile Vertical Distortion
350 meters	1000:1	5:1
350 meters	1000:1	10:1
700 meters	2000:1	5:1
700 meters	2000:1	10:1
1400 feet	100	5:1
1400 feet	100	10:1
2800 feet	200	5:1
2800 feet	200	10:1

The major shortcoming of this procedure is it will not automatically "stair-step" sections of the profile that won't fit into the profile area of a P&P sheet. Not only will GEOPAK not do this automatically, there aren't any GEOPAK tools provided to allow the user to do it manually. The only way to accomplish this is to use the MicroStation reference file tools to manually locate and clip the stair-stepped sections of  the profile. (See the Stair-Stepping Profiles section for the procedure to use.)

Another shortcoming of this procedure is the lack of control the user has over the placement of the station and elevation labels for the profile grid at the bottom of each P&P sheet. The sheets have been set up with the labels positioned as best they can be given the inherent limitations, but users should plan on using MicroStation to clean up this annotation for the final P&P sheets. (Because of the dimensions of our standard P&P sheets this problem is especially bad for English P&P sheets. For the metric P&P sheets, what is drawn by this procedure is acceptable for most cases.)

All the pre-defined P&P sheets are set up using the cells in cell libraries engborder.cel and metborder.cel. One of these two cell libraries must be attached to the plan/profile dgn file prior to creating the P&P sheet dgn files.

There are several "hidden" set up files for the various P&P sheets that need to be in place before you can run the procedure outlined below. The quickest way to check whether  these files are in place is to click on the option button immediately below the Sheet Info label in the Plan/Profile Sheets main dialog. If the options list doesn't include PNPENG and PNPMET, then GEOPAK isn't configured correctly.

Setup in Main Plan/Profile Sheets Dialog:

There are numerous items that the user must set up in the main Plan/Profile Sheet dialog prior to creating the P&P sheets. The following step-by-step procedure refers to the marked-up graphic of the main dialog shown below.

1. Job Number. Key in or use the Select... button to fill in the Job Number field.
2. Mode. Set the Mode button to Sheet Layout.
3. Chain. Key in or use the Select... button to fill in the chain name field.
4. Profile. Key in or use the Select... button to fill in the design profile name field.
5. Define Profile Origin... Click on the button to bring up the dialog shown below. Fill in the fields in the dialog to define the location and aspect ratio of the profile:
   1. DP Station and DP Elevation. These two items refer to the station and elevation you assigned to the reference point that you snapped to when you drew the profile from D&C Manager.
      Note: D&C Manager will allow you to specify a reference point whose station is before the first station on the profile. However, the Plan/Profile Sheet Layout procedure will not work correctly if you use a reference point that is before the first station on the profile. You should always use the first station of the profile for the reference point. If your reference point is before the first station of the profile, move the reference point in the dgn file so that it aligns with the beginning of the profile.
   2. Horizontal Scale and Vertical Scale. These values should be exactly the same as the values used when the profile was drawn using D&C Manager. They define how much the profile plotted in the dgn file is "stretched" in the vertical direction. 
      Note: The ratio of these two numbers is what really matters, not the exact values. The ratio is referred to elsewhere in this write-up as the vertical distortion of the profile. In the example shown above the vertical distortion is 5:1 (the normalized value of 100:20).
   3. DP X and DP Y. Click on the By DP button and then snap to the reference point that was used to draw the profile.
   4. Kill the Define Profile Origin dialog.
6. Sheet Type. Select sheet type with the option button in the upper left corner of the Sheet Info group box. The only thing that Sheet Type effects is the increments used for the elevation and station annotation for the profile grid on the P&P sheet; it has essentially nothing to do with the scale of the sheet. If you're not going to be picky about the increments use for this annotation then select the appropriate generic P&P sheet (PNPMET for metric or PNPENG for English) and skip the rest of this step. The generic sheets should work for most users.
   
   If you can't live with the profile annotation increments the generic P&P sheet types draw, then use the table below to select the sheet type with the desired station and elevation increments. The various sheet types available are based on the commonly used combinations of plan view scale and the profile vertical distortion.  The elevation increments are set up to match the major horizontal grid lines.
   
   

   Length of Centerline Per Sheet	Plan View Scale	Profile Distortion	Station Annotation Increment	Elevation Annotation Increment	Sheet Type
   350 m	1000:1	5:1	50 m	2 m	PNPM1
   350 m	1000:1	10:1	50 m	1 m	PNPM2
   700 m	2000:1	5:1	100 m	4 m	PNPM3
   700 m	2000:1	10:1	100 m	2 m	PNPM4
   1400'	100	5:1	100'	8'	PNPE1
   1400'	100	10:1	100'	4'	PNPE2
   2800'	200	5:1	500'	16'	PNPE3
   2800'	200	10:1	500'	8'	PNPE4

   
   Note: If the PNPM1, PNPM2, etc. options don't appear on the sheet type option button, then GEOPAK is configured incorrectly on your PC.
7. Scale. Set according to the table below.
   
   

   Plan View Scale	Scale
   1000:1 Metric	1000
   2000:1 Metric	2000
   100 English	100
   200 English	200

   
   
   
8. Display All Sheets/Display Active Sheets option button. For almost every case either option will work. (The only situation where there is a distinction between the two options is if you have sheet boundaries for more than one chain drawn in the same dgn file.)
9. Plan # and Profile # fields. Don't change the values that automatically appear in these fields. Typically both fields will default to 1, however there is one common situation where the values show up as 2. That is when you have manually placed a single sheet at the beginning of the chain because the chain starts on an odd station and you want to use a first sheet with less than the normal length of centerline on it.
10. By Begin Station/Overlap and By Station Range checkboxes. Always check By Station Range. (These should be radio buttons rather than checkboxes -- checking one "unchecks" the other.)
11. Inside Out/Outside In option button. Always select the Inside Out option.
    The distinction between these two options is much too involved to explain here. As a matter of fact, it's so complicated that the online help explains it incorrectly.
12. Radial checkbox. Make sure this box is not checked.
13. Station Range. This is the nominal length of centerline per sheet. Refer to the table under item #14 for allowable Station Range values.  If you try to use any values other than what's in the table, the P&P sheets will be clipped incorrectly, guaranteed.
14. Horizontal. This value controls how far past the nominal begin and end stations for the sheet the clipping fence is set. In general this should be set to maximize the amount of plan and profile that is shown on each sheet. Refer to the table below for maximum (preferred) values for Horizontal. Values larger than those specified will not work.
    
    

    Station Range Per Sheet	Horizontal	Vertical	Plan Sheet Scale
    350 m	10 m	0	1000:1 Metric
    700 m	20 m	0	2000:1 Metric
    1400'	40'	0	100 English
    2800'	80'	0	200 English

    
    
    
15. Vertical. This controls how far in from the top and bottom of the plan and profile drawing areas the clipping fence is set. In general this should be set to 0 to maximize the amount of plan and profile that is shown on each sheet.
16. Begin Station. This is the nominal beginning station of the first full length P&P sheet.
17. End Station. This defaults to the ending station of the chain which should be good if you want P&P sheets for the entire length of the chain.
18. Plan & Profile/Plan/Profile option button. Make sure this is set to Plan & Profile.
19. Layout button. Draws the sheet boundary shapes into the plan view dgn file as shown below. The area within each rectangular shape is the portion of the plan or profile that will be plotted in the corresponding P&P sheet.
    
    
    
    Each of the plan or profile sheet boundary shapes consists of two separate shapes (as shown in the figure below): (1) the sheet boundary, which represents the maximum size the plan or profile can be on the sheet, and (2) the clip boundary, which represents the area within the sheet boundary where the plan or profile will be drawn. (Note:  If the horizontal and vertical settings in the table under step #14 are used, then you won't see two separate boundaries as shown below because the sheet and clip boundaries are exactly the same size and are coincident. Both boundaries are there, you just can't distinguish between them.) The sheet boundary is a fixed size and cannot be modified by the user. The clip boundary size and shape can be adjusted by the user with the Modify Drawing Area tool.
    
     
    
    
20. Modify... button. Calls up a dialog with options to modify the sheet boundaries that were placed when you clicked on the Layout button in step #19. The Modify options include sliding a sheet along the centerline, adjusting a profile sheet boundary, modifying the clipping boundary of a plan or profile sheet. Another option allows you to place a single plan sheet, which is how you trick Plan/Profile Clip into creating a partial length first sheet. See the Modify Dialog section below for details.
21. Clip Sheets... button. Calls up the dialog where you do the final setup prior to actually creating the P&P sheets. See the Clip Sheets Dialog section below for details.

The Modify dialog (shown at right) allows the user to make adjustments to sheet boundary shapes that were placed when the Layout button was clicked in the main Plan/Profile Sheets dialog. In most cases users won't have any need to use these tools and can skip directly to the Clip Sheets dialog.

The Modify options available are:

1. Place Single Plan Sheet. Allows the user to dynamically place a single plan boundary shape. This tool is used most often to locate the plan boundary shape for the first P&P sheet when the centerline chain starts at an odd station.
   The easiest way to understand this is with an example:
   Suppose that we have a project that starts at Sta. 1+234 and we want to create 1000:1 scale P&P sheets. If we do the typical Plan/Profile Clip procedure outlined previously, GEOPAK will put the plan and profile boundary shapes every 350 meters starting at the initial station of the chain. There our P&P sheets will cover the following station ranges:
   
   

   Sheet Number	Begin Station	End Station
   1	1+234	1+584
   2	1+584	1+934
   3	1+934	2+284
   etc.

   
   
   Ideally we would like to begin and end the sheets on even 50 meter stations. To accomplish this we could use the Place Single Plan Sheet to place a plan sheet boundary with its ending station at 1+550, and then use the normal procedure to place the remainder of the sheets starting at 1+550. By using this procedure our P&P sheets would now cover the following ranges:
   
   

   Sheet Number	Begin Station	End Station
   1	1+234	1+550
   2	1+550	1+900
   3	1+900	2+250
   etc.

   
   
   (Note: When in Plan & Profile mode, each time a single plan sheet boundary is placed with this tool, the corresponding profile sheet boundary is automatically placed on the profile.)
2. Slide Single Plan Sheet. Generally this option should not be used because it will mess up the very precise station ranges for each sheet that we worked so hard to set up in the main Plan/Profile dialog and also in the hidden setup files.
3. Adjust Profile Sheet. This allows the user to adjust any of the profile boundary shapes up or down (but not ahead or back on line). Typically the user should not have to use this option.
4. Modify Drawing Area. Allows the user to adjust the clipping boundary within individual plan and profile boundary shapes. (Notice that the outer plan and profile boundary shapes are "hard coded" into the hidden setup files cannot be modified with this tool.)
5. Edit Sheet Number. This is primarily a utility that allows the user to quickly locate and view specific boundary shapes.

In this dialog box you do one final round of setup and then you finally create the P&P sheets.

The step numbers in the following procedure correspond to the numbers shown in red in the Clip Sheets dialog shown above.

1. Output File. Key in a design file name for the P&P sheet file(s). When the files are created, the name you provide is modified by the software to include a sequence number. For example, if the output file name specified is "sheet.dgn", then the first P&P sheet file will be named "sheet1.dgn", the second "sheet2.dgn", etc.
2. Reference File List. The dgn file where the plan and profile sheet boundaries are drawn should always be listed here. If it isn't listed, add it to the list using the procedure outlined in step #3 below.
   In addition to the file where the sheet boundaries are drawn, any reference files to that file are also listed in this box. If for some reason you don't want some or all of these reference files plotted, simply select them and click the Delete button immediately above to not include them in the P&P sheets. (Note: Delete does not delete the actual files. It just eliminates them from being added to the P&P sheets.)
3. Reference File. This field is used to add any reference files that you want to be included in the P&P sheets files but aren't already listed in the Reference File List box. Typically the software will automatically detect all the reference files that are necessary, and you won't need to use this field.
4. Place Sheet Cell. Always check this option. Never check Attach Sheet Cell Reference.
5. Sheet Cell Name field. This is the name of the P&P sheet cell to use. For metric P&P sheets this will always be PNP41 from the metborder.cel library. For English P&P sheets this will always be PNP41 from the engborder.cel library.
   The appropriate cell library (metborder.cel or engborder.cel) must be attached when you finally click on the Process button to create the P&P sheets.
   All the hidden setup files are based on the dimensions for the PNP41 cells. If you try to use any other P&P sheet cell, the plan or the profile or the annotation almost certainly will not line up correctly.
6. Rotate group box. Always check Reference. (If View is chosen then you'll get one P&P sheet per design file.)
7. Sheets/File.  Select the number of P&P sheets you want in each design file. Available options are anywhere from one sheet per file to putting all the sheets in a single file. (This button is not available if View is selected in the Rotate group box.)
8. Sheet. This allows you to place some general information about each sheet beside the sheet in large text. I don't think this is very useful, but you may find it helpful.
9. Define Annotation... Brings up a dialog box similar to what's shown below. If you fill in the fields in this box they will be written to the title block of each P&P sheet as shown. The most useful of these is the Sheet Number because it will use the number you supply for the first sheet it creates and then increment to get the sheet numbers for subsequent sheets. Unfortunately GEOPAK will only fill in a maximum of three text strings while there are six fields that need to be filled in the title block on our P&P sheets. (Note: Always hit the tab or enter keys after filling in one of these fields; if you don't the info you just typed in is not recognized.)
   
   
   
   
10. Sheet Range. If for some reason you don't want to create all the P&P sheets, this is where you tell the software.
11. Process button. Click to create the P&P sheet files. (Finally!)

1. When the chain starts on an "odd" station (e.g., 20+23.45) the station labels at the bottom of the first sheet are not correct.
   1. With GEOPAK 98 the first even station before the beginning of the chain is labeled, and after that no further station labels are placed on the first sheet. Station labels on subsequent sheets are OK.
   2. With GEOPAK 2000 the first even station before the beginning of the chain is labeled correctly, but the remainder of the station labels on the first sheet are omitted.
2. When the chain starts on an even station (e.g., 20+00) the station labels at the bottom of the first sheet continue off past the right edge of the sheet with GEOPAK 98. The station labels on the following sheets are correct.
3. The minor station label settings are virtually worthless given the dimensions of our standard P&P sheets. Don't even bother to try to use them.