Setting up border properly in paper space!

I'm Brian! My background is Land Surveying/Civil Engineering but I have been out of the business for about 7 years. I may be getting a job for a survey company so I am messing around trying to refresh my skills. The last version of AutoCAD I used at my old company was 2009. I'm currently using 2002 at home. The CAD system we used at my old company was basically setup to be compatible with version 2000 or 2002.

I am having a hard time getting a border setup properly in paper space. The way it was setup at my old company was, I could just insert a border of the size I wanted, scale the view port to work with it, and there you go.

I only have the ability to print 8.5"x11" so that's what I'm currently trying to setup. I draw a 8.5x11 rectangle representing the border. Drew my view port and scaled it to what I wanted. I turned the print margins on which are about 8x10 and seemed to fit the 8.5x11 border just right. So it would seem the border is okay? When in the plot window with the plotter and paper ect. setup properly, windowing the print area, when I do a plot preview the image is way bigger than then the displayed paper. I tried some different scaling experiments with the border but nothing seems to work.

So I've kind of gotten stuck.

It might make things a little easier for everyone if you just attach a copy of the drawing to your next post. Someone here will take a look at it and get back to you with any comments/suggestions.

One thing though. If you are plotting from a layout you shouldn't have to window the print area. In the plot dialog box where it says Plot Area > What to plot: it should automatically read "Layout".

Thanks ReMark! Good idea!

114.dwg

Please reread my post. I had a further comment.

Quick look. Seems you have a duplicate set of objects in your layout over to the right. Erase them.

As it turns out those objects were an 18x24 border with a second viewport.

Question. Why are you using decimal units and not engineering units for your model space geometry?

If you are plotting from a layout you shouldn't have to window the print area. In the plot dialog box where it says Plot Area > What to plot: it should automatically read "Layout".

You are right, it's just a habit I got into because there would often be more than one border in there to select from.

You can accommodate different paper sizes by making use of additional layouts. For example, our building plot plans have layout tabs for 8.5x11 (horiz.), 11x17, 18x24, and 24x36.

I've got an errand to run. I'll check this thread when I return.

Sorry for the delayed response. Big traffic backup.

Hmmm. No further comments I see. I guess you got it all figured out then. Good.

Question. Why are you using decimal units and not engineering units for your model space geometry?

Because in Land Surveying you work in feet and tenths of feet, not feet and inches.

Hmmm. No further comments I see. I guess you got it all figured out then. Good.

Haven't figured it out yet. I didn't see your comment on the units. Did you add that later?

You should look into the hard clip limits of your printer this is the actual rectangle that can be plotted, say for a laser printer this is around 1/4" on each edge, so your outer border would be 8.5x11 and the inner viewport would be say a fraction more than the 1/4" in from each egde. Leave the viewport border plottable and if you get a "L" outer border measure this as its the hard clip limits.

Another suggestion is to have the Viewports toolbar on, when your in a viewport and have roughly scaled a dwg to the way you want it to look, a number will appear this is current scale factor, we are metric so it makes it easy we can type a number in this box and adjust the scale to a preset scale ie 4 which is 1:250 2 = 1:500 10 =1:100 you should be able to do the same for feet.

bri: You must have forgotten more than you remember. If you set your units to Architectural you work in feet, inches and fractions of an inch. If, on the other hand, you set your units to Engineering you work in feet and tenths/hundredths of feet. Leave it to Americans to come up with tenths/hundredths of a foot (0.0833=1"). LOL!

Remember your days of manual drafting? There were two widely used triangluar scales. One was architectural and the other engineering. Both can be represented using AutoCAD. See for yourself.....

Not only can you set your drawing to use one or the other you also must change your dimension style to agree with the selected units.

Re: my comment "Guess you got it all figured out." was in reference to setting up a title block and border in a paper space layout. I should have made myself clearer. My apologies.

One suggestion. Create a separate layer for your paper space viewports (ex. - VPorts) and give it a color other than white. Set this layer to "no print" in the Layer Properties Manager. Try to avoid overriding layer colors whenever possible too.

[Comment removed because it was in error.]

bri: You must have forgotten more than you remember. If you set your units to Architectural you work in feet, inches and fractions of an inch. If, on the other hand, you set your units to Engineering you work in feet and tenths/hundredths of feet.

Again, engineering is for working in feet, inches and decimal inches. Not for working in feet, tenths of feet, and hundredths of feet. Working in decimal is a standard in the industry. And that is something I'm positive about. Numbers we work with in CAD are always displayed in decimal foot. If you want to enter 1'-4" in CAD, or CAD displays it, it is displayed as 1.33333. Not 1'-4.0000".

Thanks for the suggestions, but I don't really need advice on layer control. That drawing is a test drawing, not something that I would call a production drawing and the layers are not setup on it. Or as they would be.

On your drawing the viewports are also not scaling properly. With a viewport scaled at 30, "Z -> S, 1/30xp" the whole property in the drawing should be nicely visible on a 18"x24" sheet. But it's huge, more like a 5 scale.

Suit yourself.

 

The viewport scales you put so much faith in like 1:50 and 1:30, are ratios. They are not an engineering scales. Why do you think I added the two engineering scales of 1"=30' and 1"=40'?

I understand that. But when the viewport is scaled to a ratio of 1:30, on the physical plot it should equal a scale of 1"=30'. With the way it is setup now it is not doing that.

nicely visible on a 18"x24"

Did you set up your layout as a 18x24 if you still had it as a 11x8 it will not work.

Did you set up your layout as a 18x24 if you still had it as a 11x8 it will not work.

I'm not understanding why you need to setup your layout specific to the paper size you want to use. The way we had things setup was you could insert any paper size you wanted into a layout and it would work. You size the view port window to the fit the paper size appropriately. Then scale the drawing view in the view port to the scale you wanted to use and with what would work for the paper size you were using. This may further complicate things, or it might help I don't know. But when sizing the drawing in the view port to the size you wanted, for instance if you wanted a 30 scale drawing, instead of when zoom-scaling doing a "1/30xp", we would do a "30/1xp".

I have inserting any size border with plotting working properly. Didn't have to do anything like I thought. I'm not sure how things were setup to were the view port scaling ratio was reversed "30/1xp" vs. the normal "1/30xp" but that may not matter much. I'm sure that's how it was setup though. Why I don't know.

There's a difference in engineering and civil engineering, I guess. During my days of carrying a leveling rod through swamps, the surveyor behind the tripod would holler out "up a tenth", or "back a tenth", and so on. My 300 foot tape reel had the feet divided into 10 chunks, or tenths of a foot, so did the leveling rod, and every survey I drew used the same 'length' measuring unit, Surveyor's Units. 1.9999 is dang near 2.0 feet.

What's upsetting is that these tools are now easier found in "vintage tool" bins at the flea market.

There's a difference in engineering and civil engineering, I guess. During my days of carrying a leveling rod through swamps, the surveyor behind the tripod would holler out "up a tenth", or "back a tenth", and so on. My 300 foot tape reel had the feet divided into 10 chunks, or tenths of a foot, so did the leveling rod, and every survey I drew used the same 'length' measuring unit, Surveyor's Units. 1.9999 is dang near 2.0 feet.

The feet divided into tenths is correct. That's how it's still done. I'm not sure what you're saying with the Surveyor's units, and them being 1.9999999? Two feet is two feet in surveying. Not 1.999999999.

I suspect Dana is playing the Devil's advocate, and he would be inclined to agree with you.

I suspect Dana is playing the Devil's advocate, and he would be inclined to agree with you.

Ah, yeah! He might be making a joke referring to how it seems like you can never quite get something quite perfect in surveying. It seems like you can get as close to perfect as can be gotten, but just can't get that last hair and get it perfect.

The feet divided into tenths is correct. That's how it's still done. I'm not sure what you're saying with the Surveyor's units, and them being 1.9999999? Two feet is two feet in surveying. Not 1.999999999.

No, I didn't say 1.9999 was two feet, I said 1.9999 is dang near two feet. I was not at all offering the number as a definition of what a Surveyor's Unit is. Now (For those non-surveyors out there) a surveyor's unit is 1 foot, not 2 feet, anyway. Can't imagine hiking around the hills and rocks all day with a leveling rod and a unit that big.

I suppose I should have paragraphed after the words Surveyor's Units, and then prefaced my statement with a disclaimer such as, "WARNING I am about to make an offhand silly comment in a joking manner".

You can have the thread back now. I have forgotten the question I wanted to ask about how you got your layouts to print.