How to print a drawing with draftsight at a specific scale?

[sinergy]

Hi

what steps need to be followed to print a drawing at a specified scale? Like 1:100 or 1:200 etc?

I guess the starting point is that the original drawing is at full size scale or 1:1. How do I know that?

Thanks

[ReMark]

Is there at least one line you know the true dimension of? Do a LIST on that line or check its Properties. What does Draftsight report back as the length of the line?

[ReMark]

Are you printing from model space or from a sheet? I'd recommend printing from a sheet using a Viewport. Double click inside the viewport then go to Properties. Check out the image below. Click on the down-pointing arrow I have circled on the right to see a list of the default scales available.

 

[SLW210]

I moved your thread to the AutoCAD Drawing Management & Output Forum.

 

Draftsight is NOT Solidworks, it is more along the line of AutoCAD, so please post your questions in a more appropriate forum.

[sinergy]

Hi

well I drew an image on top of a raster image that I imported into drafsight. One of the sides of the real image was 114 m and apparently when I measure the line that represent

that side I get the same value. Does this mean that I am already drawing at full size?

[sinergy]

Oops I didn see that you had moved the thread....I'll post my reply right there then thanks

[sinergy]

I usually print from model space because I am not very knowledgeble on how to use the sheet (yet!). So usually I mainly try to make the drawing fit in a specific paper size

but this doesn't usually gives me the scale that I want the drawing printed to.

Now I awould like to make sure I can print to a specified scale in a specific sized paper (like A4 or A3)

When I go to File/Print the print dialog box that comes out doesn't give me any indication (that I can detect) on what scale will be the printed document in.

For example, if I mark a 1:100 scale (after double clicking in the existing viewport in the sheet 1) in the Properties side windows as you show, this is what I get:

 

 

When I go to print preview nothing is shown in the preview, meaning that the resulting drawing is too little to be seen....which makes me think that the measurement unit that I believe is meters is actually mm instead....

On the other hand, if I go to Format/Unit System, the unit scale is 'meters'....

[ReMark]

The last thing you want to check off is "Print to Fit". I would instead suggest setting the scale as "User-defined" then select the proper scale under Units.

[BIGAL]

It would be easier to print from a viewport draw a box 420 x297 this is a A3 sheet then create a viewport inside this box about 15mm in zoom you object to fit , then try the preset scales and see how they compare to the largest size "FIT"

 

You have the scale on the screen just untick the FIT button I can see it in your image and you can set the units as 1=X try 2 4 10 20 50 these all correspond to a true scale 4=1:250 10=1:100 you have 0.77 in image

[ReMark]

A simple exercise. Let's say I have drawn a box with the dimensions of 2100 by 1485 and I want to print it on an A3 sheet of paper at a scale of 1:10. My drawing looks like this.

 

 

My printer settings look like this.

 

 

Note that I "unchecked" the option "Fit to paper". Using the down arrow after the option Scale: User-defined I can select 1:10 which is then reflected below.

 

Look to the far right and you also see that I have elected to center my model space geometry on the paper.

 

In the upper right corner there appears a white border representing the sheet size (297x420). The green rectangle/letter is a pseudo-representation of what falls within the confines of the paper. The fact that it is green tells us everything will be printed. If it were red then that would indicate some portion of our drawing falls outside the edges of the paper.

 

As a final check if you look in the lower left hand corner of the Print Configuration dialog window you will see a button labeled "Print Preview...". Click on the button and you will see your drawing as it will appear on the paper. If everything is to your satisfaction then go ahead and print your drawing.

 

This exercise was done entirely from within model space.

[sinergy]

ok, I did this exercise too and I got the same result as you. The only thing I didn't catch at the beginning was that you had to set the units type as mm as well (you didn't say that but I guess you assumed it....).

If I change the scale to be 1:1 the drawing desappears: does that mean that it is bigger that the A3 paper format? If this is the case why doesn't the rectangle become red? Or may be it does become red only if a portion can be printed?

 

But...I did another similar experiment which I think is meaningful (to me at least): I opened a new document which has meters as unit type by default, and drew a box of 10x20 (meters, or so I supposed) when I go to Print and set the print configuration as you showed above, I get this picture:

There you can see that the box appear as a tiny little box in the middle while, according to my reasoning, it should exceed the A3 paper size because at 1:1 scale it is 10x20 meters wide..... On the other hand if I open a new document with unit types as mm and I draw a box of 10000 x 20000 mm big (again 10 x 20 meters as a matter of fact) then the scaling occurs similarly to the drawing you did.

I find this confusing because if the unit type was set to meters this should show and it doesn't! I mean if I am in meters and draw a box of 10 x 20 or if I am in mm and draw a box of 10000 x 20000 mm the way this is represented in A3 paper should be the same, shouldn't it? What is it that I am missing here?

 

Do I have to assume that as a matter of fact DraftSIght only deals correclty with mm or inches, all other unit types must be introduced using some kind of "trick" to obtain the intended behaviour?

[ReMark]

One unit can be equal to anything you want. A millimeter, centimeter, meter, etc. Neither AutoCAD nor Draftsight really cares; it's all arbitrary. I believe the Draftsight template I used ( standardiso.dwt ) is set to use millimeters. I'm not sure how to change it in Draftsight because I could not find anything equivalent to AutoCAD's -dwgunits command. Anyways, when I draw anything with DS I use the default template ( standard.dwt ) which is set to utilize decimal inches. I need a mind reset when I start helping those of you who are stuck using metric units. Really now, the U.K. should adopt feet and inches.....so much easier. LoL

 

I haven't looked but maybe printing to scale from Draftsight is covered in one or the other E-Book called Tips & Tricks (Vol. I and Vol. II) available at the DS website. I am sure if you look hard enough you should be able to find a video or two about the subject and maybe even an independently written tutorial. I have not bothered to search for either unfortunately as I rarely if ever print from DS.