Print settings window

This windows lets you set the print parameters. It has some pages that group settings:

• Printer page

• Page page

• Drawing page

• Options page

• View page

• Pens page

In the Printer page in particular you set the size of the printer page whereas in the Drawing page you set the size of the drawing sheet you want to produce in the end. Initially the two sizes are equal (Default setting of the Size of the Drawing page), but they can be separately modified: this way you can produce a drawing in a larger format than the largest format of your printer. This means that the printer will print several pages that have to be cut and united in order to form the required format. In this case you are recommended to activate the Cropmarks option in the View page: the printer will print little marks at the edges of the print area of each page that will help you afterwards cut the pages when composing the whole drawing.

Preview

In this field the effect of the settings is displayed immediately and updated at every modifying:

• A white square shows the drawing sheet that will be printed (independently of the paper format); a dashed line represents the margins of the page. The size of the drawing sheet is set in the Drawing page.

• A blue square shows the drawing area that contains the entities of the drawing that are to be printed; if there is nothing to print there won’t be any blue square. In case of a multiple window view the blue squares represent the windows instead of the graphic entities box.

• One or more red squares show the order of the pages that are to be printed; each page has its number and corresponds to one print page displayed without the margins. The print pages are more than one if the drawing is larger than the printer paper. The size of the printer paper is set in the Page page.

Print preview...

Clicking on this button you open the Print preview window that displays an exact preview of the drawing as it would be printed (the whole drawing, not only one page of it) with the current setup that is not necessarily saved. You can have a print preview without opening the Page setup window, too: just using the Print preview command.

Open settings...

Read a page setup file that was previously saved.

Save setup...

Saves the current page setup as file in order to reuse it subsequently.

Default setup

Resets the settings made in all pages at their default values.

The general page setup (Printer page and Page page) are saved separately from the page setup of other programs and are set for every new drawing.

 

All settings are always saved together with the drawing and are read automatically when the drawing is loaded.

 

In case of a multiple windows view the view and scale settings in the View page are disabled: the drawing will be printed the way it is displayed on the screen, not being defined the window where the settings should be applied.

 

Pay attention to the fact that there are different concepts of printer paper and drawing paper. The printer paper is physically the single sheet of paper where draws the printer. Instead, the drawing paper is the sheet on which we consider to print our drawing. The two may coincide (Default setting for Size in the Drawing page), but not necessarily, because you can also print drawings on paper sizes not supported by the printer. For example you can print on an A0 size while having available a printer capable of printing only on A4 size, in this case the drawing A0 is printed on multiple sheets A4, to be precise 18.

Printer page

This page lets you set the printer you want to use.

It has to be reminded that besides printers you can use plotters as well which are managed by the program the same way as printers.

Printer

In this field you choose the printer you want to use:

Name

Displays the printer chosen. The pull-down menu offers a list of all installed printers.

Beneath some information on the selected printer is displayed.

Printer properties...

Lets you modify the settings of the selected printer according to the modes of the printer driver. Eventual modifications are valid for the drawing program only, they don’t interfere with the system settings.

Print unit

Lets you define the unit of measure for all settings: metric or English.

Color of printer paper

This setting corresponds to the Desktop color setting in the View page of the CAD Options window. If the check box of Colored paper is checked the printer will consider the color of the print sheet set in the input field aside. E.g. a white segment on white paper is printed black. The available colors are the same as the color attributes of graphic entities.

Page page

This page lets you set the printer paper. The drawing sheet is set in the Drawing page.

In the Preview the print sheet is displayed as red square. If the size of the drawing sheet is bigger than the printer paper you will need more print sheets for printing the whole drawing: in the Preview you then can see several numbered red squares, one for each print sheet

Printer paper

In this field you set the print page:

Size

In this field you set the format of the printer paper that can be selected from the list of the available paper formats in the pull-down menus. The available formats depend on the printer driver.

Feed

The feed can be selected from the list of the available feed modes in the pull-down menu.

Portrait

With this option the print page will be put vertically.

Landscape

With this option the print page will be put horizontally.

Print range

In case the drawing needs more print pages (i.e. if the format of the drawing sheet is bigger than the printer page format set in this sheet) in this field you can decide what pages are to be printed:

All

All pages will be printed.

Pages

Only those pages are printed that are indicated in the input field on the right (e.g. 1,3, 5-8: prints pages 1, 3, 5, 6, 7 and 8). The page numbers correspond to those in the Preview field.

Margins of the printer paper

In this field you set the margins of the print page. Remember that printers usually have a minimum margin outside of which they cannot print. If in this page you set margins that are under the minimum margins the program when closing the Print settings window asks whether the margins shall be corrected. If you deny, in the print phase outer parts of the drawing might not be considered and not printed, thus. The print area of the print page is displayed in the Preview as dashed box.

Drawing page

This page lets you set the drawing sheet. The print page can be set in the Page page.

The drawing sheet is displayed as white square in the Preview.

Initially the drawing sheet is set equivalent to the print page, but it can be modified separately. You can print a drawing in a larger format than the largest format of the printer: that means that the printer will print several pages that you will have to cut and unite in order to obtain the one drawing in the format you set. In this case in the Preview you will see several numbered red squares representing each one print page on the white drawing sheet square.

Drawing sheet

Here you set the drawing sheet:

Size

In this field you can set the format of the drawing sheet, in the pull-down menu you can select one of the available formats: standard ISO and ANSI formats as well as several special formats:

Default: with this format the size of the drawing sheet always corresponds to the printer paper as set in the Page page, margins included; this way the print area will always correspond to the occupied drawing area.

Customized: this format lets you set the format of the drawing sheet as you like it: use the two input fields under the Size field that is enabled when you click here.

Multiple pages: with this format the size of the drawing sheet is set to make sure that the number of print pages is a multiple of the format set in the Page page. To get the correct size you have to define the number of Rows and Columns in the corresponding input fields under the Size field that is enabled when you click here. The size of the drawing sheet as well as the print page, margins included, is then calculated.

Portrait

The print page will be vertical.

Landscape

The print page will be horizontal.

Margins of the drawing sheet

Here you can set the margins of the drawing sheet. In case under Size you have selected Default the input fields are disabled: in that case the margins of the drawing sheet equal the margins of the print page set in the Page page.

Options page

This page lets you scale graphic entities or display only part of them for the printing.

Scale

Usually, the scale settings for the graphic entities made in the View page are valid for the printing, too. In this field, though, you can set a different scale, that can be absolute or relative, for certain types of entities or attributes; for the specific meaning see below.

In the column on the left you find a list of the entities and attributes a different scale can be set for. If you don’t check the check box the respective input field is disabled and the scale is the general scale of the drawing. If the check box is checked the input field is enabled and you can define the scale for the respective entity or attribute. Two scale types are available:

Absolute scale

Is enabled when the Absolute check box is checked. In this case the first input box is locked, its value is 1, the other input box is enabled: you have to insert the absolute value in the unit of measure displayed beside the box that shall correspond to drawing unit 1 in the printing.

Relative scale

Is enabled when the Absolute check box is not checked. In this case both input boxes are enabled; in the first you insert a value in the drawing unit (usually 1), in the other (on the right) you have to insert the value in the unit of measure displayed beside the box that shall correspond to the value in drawing unit in the printing.

The meaning of the values set in the input boxes is specific:

Hatchings: Spacing of the hatching

Points: Point size

Text height: Character height

Dimension height: Character height of the dimension text

Line types: Multiplication factor of the pieces of a dashed line. The option doesn’t concern continuous lines.

Width: General multiplication factor of the widths that are set in the Pens sheet.

View

Lets you select the entity types to be printed. If the option All is checked all entities are printed, and the other check boxes are disabled. Otherwise they are enabled and let you select one by one (by checking the respective check boxes) the entities you want to print.

View page

Here you can define the view settings.

Fit

If the check box is checked the drawing scale is selected automatically in order to adapt the drawing to the printer paper. With this option the drawing is automatically centered.

Optimum scale

Shows the value of the optimum scale in case the Fit option has been enabled.

Drawing scale

Checking the check box you can set the drawing scale inserting a value in the input field. Besides the Unit of Measure input field at the bottom of the sheet is activated: it lets you define the unit of measure that shall correspond to the non-dimensional drawing unit.

Current view

If the check box is checked the center of the drawing sheet (set in the Drawing page) will correspond to the center of the current view of the drawing.

Centered

If the check box is checked the center of the drawing sheet will correspond to the center of the box of the printed entities.

Origin

If the check box is checked the origin of the drawing sheet will correspond to the origin of the box of the printed entities.

Print selected entities

If the check box is checked selected entities are printed only; otherwise all entities will be printed.

Rotated

If the check box is checked the drawing is printed rotated by the value inserted in the input field aside.

Crop marks

If the check box is checked crop marks are printed at the corners of the print area of the printer paper, i.e. at the corners of the margins set in the Page page. This option helps you unite the pages in case you are printing a drawing on several pages.

Margins

If the check box is checked the margins of the print area are printed.

Monochrome

If the check box is checked the drawing is printed in black and white.

Unit of Measure

This field is enabled when the printing is set to be scaled (Drawing scale check box). Here you can define the unit of measure that shall correspond to the non-dimensional drawing unit, e.g. if cm is selected and the scaling factor is 3 a line with length 1 in the print will be 3 cm long.

Pens page

This page lets you set the respective correspondence between the various screen colors and the print colors as well as the correspondence between the widths of the graphic entities on the screen and in printing.

Colors

This field contains the lists of both screen colors and print colors with aside their respective attribute value. On the right there is a list of the widths besides. Selecting a color from the list you have the following possibilities:

Color

Selects the screen color. By selecting another color from the pull-down menu you move the list to the respective color.

Pen color

Sets the print color of the entities with the screen color selected under Color. The print color can be selected from the pull-down menu.

Pen width

Sets the width the entities with the screen color selected under Color are printed with. The width can be selected from the pull-down menu. If the option Activate width in the Width field is checked the width of an entity doesn’t depend on its color, but on its width attribute.

Width

Here you can set the correspondence between width on the screen and width in print.

Activate width

If the check box is checked the width of an entity depends on its width on the screen, otherwise the screen width is ignored: the width then depends on the entity color as set in the Color field.

Width

Selects the width on the screen. It can be selected from the pull-down menu.

Pen width

Sets the print width of the entities with the screen width selected under Width.

Remember that if the Width checkbox in the Scale field of the Options page is checked the factor that is defined there multiplies all widths set here.