Guides/Drawing standards
Change Page Setup in Multiple AutoCAD Drawings at Once — Plot Device, Paper Size, CTB and Scale
Updated November 5, 2026
Made with LayerSync
Every layout carries its own page setup: the plot device, the paper size, the plot style table, the orientation and the scale. Drawings that come from different offices, or were made on different computers, disagree on all of them. A layout added on a laptop quietly picks up that laptop's default printer, and a batch plot then produces pages of mixed sizes, some in color and some not.
AutoCAD's Page Setup Manager works on the drawing that is open, and PSETUPIN imports named page setups one drawing at a time. Bringing forty drawings in line therefore means opening each one, checking every layout and retyping the same choices, or writing a script and trusting it with your DWGs.
This guide uses LayerSync, part of CADXChange Toolkit, to read the page setup of every layout in a set, apply the settings you want to the layouts you pick, and write them back with a preview and a backup. The example is six drawings with two layouts each, Plan and Detail, that all start with different setups.
1. Scan the drawings and see what each layout uses
Open LayerSync, add the drawings with Add Files… or Add Folder…, and let it scan them. Collapse the Files list to give the grid room, then open the Layouts tab. It has one row per paper-space layout per drawing (Model is never listed), and next to the name and tab order it shows the page setup: plot device, paper size, plot style table, orientation, plot area, scale, and the Centered, Lineweights and Transparency check boxes.
Here the twelve layouts use five different plot devices, among them Microsoft Print to PDF, DWG To PDF.pc3 and a Canon printer, and A3 and A4 paper under several names. A device you did not expect, such as a home printer, is exactly what this view is for.
2. Set the page setup for the layouts you pick
The bar above the grid is Set for shown layouts. Whatever you fill in there is written into every layout the search currently shows. Type Plan into the Search box first, so only the Plan layouts are listed, then fill in Plot device, Paper size, Plot style table, Orientation and Scale. Search accepts wildcards such as Sheet-*, and a plain word matches any layout name that contains it.
Here the device is DWG To PDF.pc3, the paper size ISO A3 (420.00 x 297.00 MM), the plot style table monochrome.ctb, the orientation Landscape and the scale 1:100. Click Apply to shown and the grid updates: all six Plan layouts now show those values.
Then search for Detail, change the scale to 1:20 and click Apply to shown again. The other boxes still hold their values, so the Detail layouts get the same device, paper size, style table and orientation. A box left empty, or a check box left grey, keeps that setting as it is.
3. Preview before anything is written
Click Write Directly…. LayerSync compares every edited value with what is in the drawing and lists each change on the preview screen. Here it reports 6 files previewed, 38 changes and 0 blocked. Select a drawing and open its Layouts tab to see the details: in ARCH-A101 the Plan layout changes device, paper size and plot style table, and the Detail layout also changes its orientation from Portrait to Landscape.
A value the computer cannot accept is listed as blocked with the reason instead of being skipped silently. Nothing is written until you confirm.
4. Write the changes
Click Write Selected Files and confirm. With Automatic backup ticked, LayerSync copies each drawing to a backup folder first, writes the page setup, then reads every changed value back out of the saved drawing. The recording shows the whole run, from the empty bar to the report.
5. Read the report and check the result
The Write Report shows 6 files succeeded and 0 failed, with 2 layouts written in five drawings and 1 in the sixth, 0 read-back mismatches, and where each backup went. Rollback All on the same screen restores every drawing in the run from its backup, and Restore Backup… does the same later.
To check it independently, export the layouts to Excel from the drawings again. In this example all twelve layouts came back with plot device DWG To PDF.pc3, paper size ISO A3 (420.00 x 297.00 MM), plot style table monochrome.ctb and orientation Landscape, the six Plan layouts at 1:100 and the six Detail layouts at 1:20. The set is now consistent, so PUBLISH, or any plot run that uses each layout's own page setup, gives every page the same size and style.
The same page setup can be edited in Excel instead: Export to Excel… puts the page setup of every layout on the Layouts sheet, with columns for the plot device, paper size, style table, orientation, plot area, scale and the three check boxes. Change the cells, then use the Excel → Drawings screen to preview and write them back.
CADXChange Toolkit comes with a 30-day full trial, so you can run this on a copy of a real set first. Close the drawings in AutoCAD before you write, because a file that is open elsewhere can be locked.
Try it on your own drawings
CADXChange Toolkit does this for a whole folder of drawings, with a preview and a backup first. The 30-day trial has every feature.
Start the free trial →Before you start — common questions
- How do I change the page setup of many AutoCAD drawings at once?
- Add the drawings in LayerSync and open the Layouts tab. Search for the layouts you want, fill in the Set for shown layouts bar with the plot device, paper size, plot style table, orientation and scale, and click Apply to shown. The preview then lists every change before anything is written, and the drawings are saved with a backup.
- Can I set a different scale for different layouts?
- Yes. Whatever you fill in is written only into the layouts the search currently shows, so you can search for Plan, set 1:100, then search for Detail and set 1:20. A box left empty keeps that setting as it is.
- How do I apply one CTB or plot style table to every layout?
- Leave the search empty so that every layout is shown, type the table name, for example monochrome.ctb, into Plot style table and click Apply to shown. The preview lists the layouts whose table changes.
- Why do my layouts print on different paper sizes?
- Each layout stores its own plot device and paper size. A layout added on another computer takes that computer's default printer, so a batch plot mixes sizes and styles. The Layouts tab lists the setup of every layout in the set, so the odd ones are easy to find.
- Does this change the page setups in AutoCAD's Page Setup Manager?
- It changes the plot settings of each layout in the saved drawing, which is what the layout's own page setup shows. After it, PUBLISH or any plot that uses the layout's page setup uses the new values.
- Can I undo it?
- Yes. With Automatic backup ticked, every drawing is copied to the backup folder before it is written. Rollback All on the report restores the originals, and Restore Backup does the same for earlier runs.