Not printing as displayed

[nmgmarques]

Hi.

Can someone please help me understand why this:


is printing out like this (with all text scaling down about 1/2)?


It's driving me nuts. I am trying to create a "title block" I think it's called. I'm not even sure if i'm doing it right. Pretty sure most of the mesurements are off (center lines and coordinate system lines and distances...). I'll attach the file if someone is interested in taking a look. Any and all help greatly appreciated.

[ReMark]

Are you planning in printing directly from model space or do you envision making use of a paper space layout in the future?

[nmgmarques]

Are you planning in printing directly from model space or do you envision making use of a paper space layout in the future?

As a total noob (well not total, but pretty noobish), I have no idea. I can tell you that most of the drawings I will be making I will have to print out to A4, A3, A2 and A1. With title blocks and preferably an automatic scale. Does this help?

[ReMark]

What part of the drawing is driving you nuts?

What type of drawings will you be creating?

A long, long time ago in a CAD world far, far away model space was created and it was good. Everything went into model space and drawings were done much as they were on the drafting board manually.

Then along came paper space and with it came layouts and viewports. Now it got interesting.

Model space held our geometry. Layouts became the home to our title blocks and borders. Plotting from a layout is done at a 1:1 scale. If you want text that is 2.5mm high that's what you instruct AutoCAD to use.

Interestingly enough users now had a choice as to where they wanted to put their text and dimensions. Some stayed with the default system and kept both in model space (using a new feature called Annotative Scaling). Some decided it was too much of a hassle and decided to put both in their layouts. Dimensioning then required the enabling of a feature called Associative. I suggest that newcomers to AutoCAD explore both methods and see which one works best for the type of work that they do.

I would like to make one suggestion.

If you decide to use layouts and subsequently viewports too then consider creating a layer specifically for your viewports (call it VPorts), assign it a distinctive color (maybe magenta?) and set the layer to "no print" in the Layer Properties Manager. I think you'll find it most useful.

[nmgmarques]

What part of the drawing is driving you nuts?

What type of drawings will you be creating?

A long, long time ago in a CAD world far, far away model space was created and it was good. Everything went into model space and drawings were done much as they were on the drafting board manually.

Then along came paper space and with it came layouts and viewports. Now it got interesting.

Model space held our geometry. Layouts became the home to our title blocks and borders. Plotting from a layout is done at a 1:1 scale. If you want text that is 2.5mm high that's what you instruct AutoCAD to use.

Interestingly enough users now had a choice as to where they wanted to put their text and dimensions. Some stayed with the default system and kept both in model space (using a new feature called Annotative Scaling). Some decided it was too much of a hassle and decided to put both in their layouts. Dimensioning then required the enabling of a feature called Associative. I suggest that newcomers to AutoCAD explore both methods and see which one works best for the type of work that they do.

Right now I'll be focusing on creating a general layout of the plant floor and where machines go, equipment, stuff like that. Later on I'll be progressing to 2d part drawing or 3d part drawing and plotting the drawings in 2d views. Example of layouts I am updating. Bottom right was updated by me today. The rest is part of the old original drawing. I'll have to "frame" that bottom right section in to a title block and margins and print it to A3 with the scale displayed.

[ReMark]

You may wish to consider creating templates for the different types of drawings that will be done. Each template will have some pre-defined layers, linetypes, text styles, and alike so you can hit the ground running and not have to recreate the wheel each time you start a new drawing.

Back to your original drawing. What seems to be the problem?

[ReMark]

Re: Heller PFH drawing. Not much in the way of detail there. You should see what one of our process building layouts looks like. I work at a small chemical plant. What type of plant do you work at?

[nmgmarques]

You may wish to consider creating templates for the different types of drawings that will be done. Each template will have some pre-defined layers, linetypes, text styles, and alike so you can hit the ground running and not have to recreate the wheel each time you start a new drawing.

Back to your original drawing. What seems to be the problem?

That's the idea. Create templates.

The problem, as you can see in image 1, the borders seem to be correct and the reference grid numbers and letters seem to be in place, as does the text of the title block. But when I plot it to the plotter, the text portion comes out as seen in image 2. Smaller than it should. About 1/4 size of the total drawing. But plot -> preview shows all good.

[nmgmarques]

We build refrigeration compressors. The building has 4 halls. This portion is from hall 2, where we have our CNC mills, conventional machines and such.

I'd love to see a sample of your work. My goal is to start changing some of the hundreds of outdated drawings and start giving them some detail and make them look... well, at lack of a better word... more professional.

[ReMark]

I would strongly recommend that you consider placing your title block and border in your layout and not over in model space. One thing you should know however is that AutoCAD displays a dashed outline in a layout which it deems to be the limits of the printable area. This is very important to remember because anything that falls on or outside of the dashed lines will NOT print. That means you will have to shrink your title block and border to fit WITHIN these limits.