topic Re: Paper Space in AutoCAD Forum

Paper Space

Anonymous — Tue, 31 Mar 2015 23:12:02 GMT

I am having an issue with paper space and title blocks when printing to scale. I need my drawing to be to a 1:1 scale so I can not fit to paper when I print. I am exporting to PDF. I keep trying to use extents with a 0,0 origin. I have my title block saved out as a template that I at into paper space. It's less than the 11x17 border so I assumed it would work. When I export to PDF with these settings the model is fine and to scale, but the title block keeps getting clipped on 1 or more sides.

Re: Paper Space

Kent1Cooper — Wed, 01 Apr 2015 01:43:21 GMT

Then it's still a little too big for the usable area in a .PDF for 11x17 sheet size [i.e. not quite enough less than the 11x17 border, however you have determined that]. No ordinary printer is going to be able to print all the way to the edges of a piece of paper, anyway. Probably the easiest way to find out how much of an area you can use is to draw a grid decidedly larger than 11x17, plot that with a Window, centered, 1:1, and see how much of the grid comes through in the resulting .PDF. Adjust your title block boundary to be slightly smaller than that.

Re: Paper Space

greg_battin — Wed, 01 Apr 2015 03:59:46 GMT

I have a different approach that I was taught since my old employer dealt with almost purely PDFs. So take this for what it's worth. I am not going to argue about this, I am simply showing a method.

The overall idea is to create a true 11X17 outline that is not plottable and you use a virtual printer provided by Autodesk to create the PDF

The first step is to turn off the annoying and confusing paper outline and printable margins.

Shown below is the default "Virtual sheet " of paper in a layout tab.

If your company titleblock has an insertion point in the very bottom left of the sheet, it will get inserted into the corner of the dashed lines (printable margin).

If your company title block's insertion point adjusts for this, then you better hope that the margins dont change whe you get a new default printer/plotter installed.

Turn off the imaginary paper stuff in the OPTIONS dialog box > display tab and uncheck "display printable area" and "display paper background"

In your titleblock, create an outline that is exactly 11" x 17" and put that outline on a NO PLOT layer. I think the AIA standards is "G-TTLB_OTLN" or "G-TTLB-CTLN"

This next part relies on you using a virtual printer like the ones that Autodesk provides as shown below.

These virtual plotters have "FULL BLEED" page sizes defined in them.

the trouble is that they do have a little margin, so you may need to adjust them so that they are truly FULL BLEED

Now shown below is the page setup that we use. and as long as the drafters don't put any stuff outside of that outline, the plot should be correct.

I know that people are going to chime in and say that this is stupid or wrong. They might be correct - but for the company that I worked for when we dealt with PDF deliverables, this method was the most consistant method we could come up with becuase each displine (piping, Electrical, Structural) all had their own templates to start with and yet they had to insert their titble blocks (or reference) them in on their own using these settings for consistancy sake.

Hope this helps

~Greg

Re: Paper Space

Anonymous — Wed, 01 Apr 2015 19:09:51 GMT

Worked perfect Greg. Thanks a lot.