Fitting the pages on a printed sheet

[ekb]

My plotting people have the viewer only.

They are having constant problems with fitting the page on a sheet (or roll) of paper. I used to set my print area at Arch D, now I just set it at "other" 35.9 x 23.9, to eliminate any hidden margins, they tried that too, but no matter what we do, the page will get cut off an inch or two, and printed over 2 sheets. So they end up having to put it on 30x42 or 36x48 paper and having to trim it. Any suggestions? Thank you.

[jan15]

You have to install their plotter on your computer, and then select it as the printer for any file you're going to send them, and then work inside the Print Border that results from that.

Make sure you set it up exactly as they will, exactly the same model, and including width of roll and orientation. On most plotters, a 24 x 36 print will have different printable area dimensions if it's printed on a 24" roll than if it's printed on a 36" roll using the full width of the roll.

Also, make sure Page Layout > Set Print Area is set to "One Page".

[ekb]

Thank you

that sounds so good but even as we did that the printer could not use the files, something was wrong, so we gave up on it.

If I give them the .mcd file, why should they have a problem with that margin issue? I noticed that if you set up the sheets, the border symbol and the page area are always slightly mismatched, and I am afraid that is somehow where the problem is. Anybody knows why that is?

[jan15]

I don't know what you mean by "border symbol" and "page area".

There is a "Print Area" or "Printable Area", set by the "Set Print Area" command in the "Page" pull-down menu.

And there's a grey rectangle that can't be erased and can only be moved by the "Move Page" tool. I've always called that the "Print Border", but I'm not sure if that's an official name.

If you want, you can specify an exact Print Area, in inches or centimeters. If you choose a paper size as the Print Area, I'm not sure if the exact size of the Print Area takes into account the margins of your printer. The Print Border, on the other hand, is always set automatically based on the printer and paper size you select.

To make the Print Area equal to the Print Border, you have to select "One Page" as the Print Area.

I always set the Print Area to "One Page", and have a hard time understanding why there is any other option. For me one of the most annoying features of VectorWorks is that it won't keep that "One Page" setting but keeps changing to something else, so I have to keep resetting it, and when I do the "One Page" option is always hard to find in the pull-down list.

If you want to see the difference between the Print Area and the Print Border, set a larger Print Area than Print Border and select "Show Page Breaks" in the "Set Print Area" window.

[Guest]

Ekb,

The gray print area is the legal available area the current selected plotter will print to.

The title borders are set to the standard page size for the different variations - ISO, ASME, ConDoc, size A - E.

If the current printer is set to use a page size other than the title border specified size, you are going to see the difference.

For example, if you are using a ConDoc C size title block and an ASME C size print area, the title border is goiing to be a bit larger than the print area.