Somebody asked me about the file format of AutoCAD plot styles. I didn't have a direct answer, but a later hint from the same person helped me quite a bit further. This inspired me to create a CTB/STB view/print application that works completely independent of AutoCAD and Autodesk tools! The program consists of just one executable file, there are no other exe's or dll's needed. It should work with CTB's/STB's from AutoCAD 2000 upto the latest version. The purpose of this tool is that you can view CTB's, print them and save as text file that you can open in Excel etc.

I am not 100% sure if I fully understand how all data in the tables should be interpreted (but it seems to work well). So... your feedback is always welcome.

Download PlotStyle viewer
Donate and support further development and more tools like this.... (suggestion: equivalent of 10 USD)

Curious about what's inside a PC3, PMP, CTB, STB file? Perhaps even need the info, for instance to compare files, or for trouble shooting? Starting with AutoCAD 2000 these support files for plotting/printing are compressed. As Autodesk did not disclose how they compress, there was no way to read the real content. There was... until I figured out how they compress the CTB and STB files (see PlotStyle viewer above). PC3 and PMP files use the same compression, so it was relatively easy to create an "unpack" tool. This simple tool will extract the compressed data from these files to a text file that can be analyzed and compared "off-line".

I also created this very experimental program that reads and writes (the latest release includes an MDI version, for easy comparison and drag and drop between document windows). It lets you edit the content of support files and write it back in the format that AutoCAD can read. Its main purpose is that I demonstrate that it is technically possible to do it. To really edit these files you'll have to understand the structure. Use it with care!

Tableprint is an "unsupported support tool" for AutoCAD (2000i and up) that can be used to "export" the plot style data to a format that can be imported in spreadsheet programs like Excel and Lotus 123. This GUI continues where the Autodesk developers of Tableprint stopped. It displays a plot style in a table format and lets you print the content; so you don't need to use a spreadsheet program.

Autodesk's tools for both AutoCAD 2000i/2002 (version 7) and 2004..2006 (version 8) are included in the ZIP-file.