plotting confusion is getting bad

Hello, any help would be hugely appreciated!!

I am trying to set up a layout. I have drawn my paper. I have inserted my viewport. I set my scale and lock the view port.

My confusion is this. What size sheet do i draw? An A1 standard ISO? or my printable sheet size? When I pick a window to plot my drawing surely I should pick the ISO A1 sheet edges and then it would print out the boarder and all the detail within it (the boarder within being the printable area)

If I've set my scale of the view port and locked it, then print at a 1:1 scale this should be fine... right?...

I fear I am chasing my tail and are getting in a bit of a mess with this!!

Sorry. forgot to mention. ~I'm using full AutoCAD 2006.

Hold it!

You have drawn your paper? Since you continue with "inserted viewport" I hope that you have drawn the paper in the Layout (i.e. in Paper Space)?

Go into Page Setup Manager (right-click on the Layout tab at the bottom left corner and find Page Setup Manager) and set up what paper you would like. In my line of field, A1 is the way to go but it depends on what you are drawing.

After you have done that, you don't have to draw your paper. You will see a black square on your screen that is your paper.

What size are you expected to plot to, or what size are you limited to?

Sorry. Yes. I drew the paper in layout. I havent done as you suggested because of 2 reasons. first, I don't plot from this pc, I have to send it to a shared drive then plot from a different pc that has R14! and is connected to the designjet 350 plotter (dont ask! something to do with hp drivers and windows 7) secondly, I'm confused because, if I were to set up the sheet in Page setup manager, and use a pdf writter instead I cant put in the page size that our plotter would print on...

I'm getting in a real muddle with how important the paper size must be and whether it would have an affect on my survey inside the viewport when i plot it

Um, I want to plot an A1 drawing. I dont know whether I must window the ISO A1 sheet size or my printable area sheet size.. (830.21x557.30)

It doesn't matter if you plot from that device, you can choose None as your plotter from the start and still fill in the rest.

R14? Do you mean the version R14 of AutoCAD? Holy Banananans batman - that will mess with your drawing!!

If you have your title block in Model Space then your Viewport will need to be the whole of you A1 - what I and many more do is put the title blocks in the Layout instead.

Sorry. The title block is in layout. I guess what I'm ultimately worried about is... If I have the wrong paper size as a title block or in my plotter configuration will my plotter/CAD change the size of my survey when plotting. I have the scale in as 1:1 and my viewport is locked so this shouldnt change it right?

If you create your drawing as an A3 and then it gets plotted as an A1 - you are right that as long as the box Fit To Paper is not ticked, and the scale is set to 1:1 it will still be at scale - but it will fill about an quarter of the paper.

FANTASTIC!!!!! TIME TO CELEBRATE:) I find it very difficult to put into words what I'm trying to prevent/resolve. You have just answered my question perfectly! I've been testing slightly different sizes of paper to plot and because theyre only slightly different its very difficult to get an accurate idea of if there is stretching of the drawing going on or not. I should have carried out a test exactly as you describe in your last thread. Thankyou for showing me the light:) Maybe I will keep some of my hair now:) x

Glad to help

It isn't easy to describe what is the actual problem sometimes, that is also why a lot of people here ask tons of questions at the start to figure what is the root of the problem and what is actually trying to be accomplished. Bear with the questions though, they are usually posed for a reason