Color 253 vs Transparency when plotting monochrome

CAD Standards change when a more efficient workflow is developed. NCS adopted the practice of applying color, lineweight, and linetype to the layer instead of using the plot style table to make those effects when plotting. The primary benefit is to reduce the need for plot style tables down to simply changing color to black and white. Now users need to adapt to those practices. Assigning color 253 was once a practice for fading objects. Time to change that practice and use a transparency setting that will produce the fading effect when plotting with a monochrome.ctb plot style table.

In a layout the color 253 and the color white with a transparency 55 look the same.

In plot preview using the monochrome.ctb the transparency provides the intended effect.

An argument for screening with plot style tables.

When you have a hatch pattern that displays intersecting vectors the overlapping vectors will display darker when a transparency is set.

Above, the 3 vectors in the hatch on the right (swamp) display darker at their intersection. Now compare the same file below using a screening of 40 for color 253 in the plot style. The areas of vector overlap appear uniformly faded, not darker.

If you can tolerate the darker areas where vectors overlap the transparency technique frees you from customizing the plot style table. The NCS advocates the use of an unmodified plot style table to simplify the sharing of drawings by eliminating the need to send a custom plot style table with the drawing.

I prefer to use a transparency just for the convenience of not sending a custom plot style table with the drawing and thus burdening the recipient with the task of managing another custom plot style that may conflict with another plot style with the same name having different settings.

How to modify existing drawings that need all their hatch patterns modified with a transparency settings.

Obviously you can set the TRANSPARENCY in the Layer Properties. You might be faced with other objects that should not be faded on the same layer as the hatch pattern. In this case use the FILTER command to select all hatch patterns in the drawing. Use the PROPERTIES palette to change the transparency of all the selected hatch patterns to a transparency of 60 for example.

Yes, I realize you will be researching how to use the FILTER command and what TRANSPARENCY properties are all about. It is worth the effort to learn about these topics. For now, these topics are beyond the scope of this post.