Panel Templates

I am trying to produce a drawing which is to be used for locating drill holes on a panel. I am producing the drawing on an A3 sheet of paper and when I print off the document the dimensions, although entered correctly center to center are not correct.

To clarify we have four holes the first spaced 52.5mm from the layout border, the second 105mm from this line, third 210mm and forth 315mm from the same line. We believe that the scaling is 1:1 but a physical measurement shows the errors as follows:

First Hole, 51mm from line, second hole 102mm from line, third 204mm and forth 305mm. As you can see the errors get larger from the layout line and I dont understand why this is, please can someone help!

did you print at 1:1 or "fit to page"?

most printers cannot print the full extents of an A3 sheet.

We are not given the option to fit to page as it is greyed out. To clarify we want to print of a drawing that has dimensions identical to the drawing produced with CAD 2006, so that when we print the doc and place onto our panel the location of the hole centres is dimensionally correct.

Dave

are you printing from model space or paper space?

Have you got a viewport in paper space that isn't set to 1:1?

we are printing from paper space and we only have the one viewport that is set 1:1

Dave

I would draw a line of known legth in paper space, either on this drawing or a new one and print it then measure. At least that way you can eliminate the viewport.

Very few printers actually print at 1:1 but it sounds like yours is doing a bit too much shrinking to fit.

is it the printer settings causing this rather than AutoCAD's settings?

for instance, have a look at the margin settings

I have drawn a line of known length, printed it out and it was fine. I have also looked at the printer setting and the margins are at the max value they can be.

The problem comes when I draw circles in a row and the errors get bigger between each of the circles and the border line. For instance the first circle at the left is a smaller distance error than the last circle to the right of the page.

Could the actual drawing area be the problem?

Is there any way to edit the drawing area as mine seems to be right over to the left of the page, can it not be centered to the middle of the page?