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Plotting and printing issues


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Have any of you worked out a simple strategy for plotting and printing on different size sheets?

I plot final drawings and occasional test plot full scale to pdf and email to a printer. The rest of my work is printed to 11x17 sheet in the office. Sometimes these are partial drawings at 100% of sheet size (cropping does occur), sometimes I want 50% sheet size so all the scales are half but the drawings still fit the desk, and sometimes I don't care about scale and want it to fit 11x17.

I can't seem to find a way to get VW to easily deal with these three conditions without always having to revise my page setup file by file, which throws batch plotting out the window when I forget to change something back.

Any ideas? Thanks again for the help. I am starting to figure parts of this software out.

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Have any of you worked out a simple strategy for plotting and printing on different size sheets?

I plot final drawings and occasional test plot full scale to pdf and email to a printer. The rest of my work is printed to 11x17 sheet in the office. Sometimes these are partial drawings at 100% of sheet size (cropping does occur), sometimes I want 50% sheet size so all the scales are half but the drawings still fit the desk, and sometimes I don't care about scale and want it to fit 11x17.

I can't seem to find a way to get VW to easily deal with these three conditions without always having to revise my page setup file by file, which throws batch plotting out the window when I forget to change something back.

Any ideas? Thanks again for the help. I am starting to figure parts of this software out.

Given how crappy Vectoworks priting options are, I export PDF's and print from them to get what I want.

I find the process more managable in the long run.

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1. Set up your drawing for the full size.

2. To get the reduced scale prints, create sheet layers set to 11x17 and then set the scale of a viewport to something you like.

3. If you don't care about the scale, just zoom in on the part of the drawing you want and click the Print Current View only check box in Print Dialog Box.

If you are already using Sheet Layers and want to print them smaller it is a little more work. Copy and paste everything from the full size sheet layer into a new sheet layer set to 11x17. Select Everything and Group it.

Edit the group and change the scale of each viewport to 1/2 (or whatever fraction you need) of the original scale.

Exit the Group and Ungroup. Select only the sheet layer objects (not the viewports) and Scale then my the same percentage that you changed the viewport scales.

You should now have an 11x17 drawing that matches your full scale drawing.

If you use scale bars and/or scale in the drawing title that are automatically picked up from the viewport scale, this may not work for you.

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  • 2 weeks later...

If your office printer is capable, you can print 12x18 sheets perfectly at 50%.

Or your full sized sheets can be 22x34 therefore allowing you to print 50% on 11x17.

I did this for a while. Horizontally, it works well to leave the extra 2" at the bound edge, and center the page vertically. If you don't use a border, the appearance is very similar to 24x36.

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I worked for a short time at a shipyard in the engineering dept as a draftsman. They were using AutoCAD 14 at the time. The fellow before me, a graduate from the drafting program at the local community college, didn't use viewports in any of his work.

I don't understand why anyone would not use viewports or for that matter, not having ever learned of their use. Viewports have certainly been around long enough. They absolutely simplify scale and printing requirements.

I would like to see the AIA do a survey on viewport use, the results would be interesting!

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