topic Re: Printed drawings not scaling correctly in Fusion Support Forum

Printed drawings not scaling correctly (please help!)

myancer12 — Sat, 24 Jun 2023 18:25:01 GMT

Hello,

Model space has not been changed from 1:1, to my knowledge it is 1:1. I select drawing (from design), to size b 11x17.

I scale my model down to 1:40 in drawing space, dimensions carry through correctly to the drawing space and I print directly to my epson ET 15000, size 11x17 & scale 1:1.

I have also tried printing to pdf, then sending to the printer with same error in scaling.

28' distance scaled at 1:40 prints at 33.7' instead.

Ive read some avoid this by sending to dxf, unfortunately autodesk wants $70/month for that feature. PLEASE help.

Re: Printed drawings not scaling correctly

ClintBrown3D — Sat, 24 Jun 2023 04:51:51 GMT

Hi @myancer12

I’m sorry to hear that you are having trouble. There are a few considerations, like ensuring that your page size in Fusion matches your physical paper in the printer and that your drawing views are set at the right scale.

Once the setup is correct, you should look into calibrating the printer. Although we expect our prints to be perfect, each operating system, printer & print driver introduces a small variation that could affect the print. Take a look at this article for step by step instructions on calibration : https://clintbrown.co.uk/2021/04/08/fusion-360-calibrating-11-prints/

Re: Printed drawings not scaling correctly

HughesTooling — Sat, 24 Jun 2023 09:22:59 GMT

Have you tried measuring the PDF in Acrobat Reader to confirm the problem is from Fusion?

This is what I get. Note drawing is 2:1 so measured size is doubled but pretty accurate when scaling is taken into account.

Re: Printed drawings not scaling correctly

myancer12 — Sat, 24 Jun 2023 13:19:09 GMT

The paper size is sent to drawing as 11x17, the drawing is also sent to the printer as tabloid (11x17) scale 1:1.

In pdf if I measure it it comes out correct: 8.4" scales 1:40 = 28'

Ive uploaded the drawing and will now look at the first link posted by ClintBrown. It seems strange to me that a small variation in print setting would require 83.25% reduction in the print to actually print scaled correctly. That sort of scale difference is substantial so in order to get it printed correctly, the whole sheet has to reduce by nearly 17%. If we were talking a few percent I would accept its just a translation error and scale down appropriately, continue on with life.

If I look at the drawing view and note where the edges of my model are shown relative to the plot space, they are exactly where the printer is showing them. This makes me believe its not a printer translation error. Hopefully this makes sense, if you look at the most lower right point of the footer object in the drawing, you will see it stops directly above the 'r' in garage. When printed it is in the exact same spot and obviously the boarder/title box have not been skewed by 17%. Hence why I think this error is in the CAD program and I cant figure out why.

Ive taken screen shots of exactly what I've done because in other posts I've read its easier for those to understand trying to help. See next post too, I had to spit up.

Re: Printed drawings not scaling correctly (please help!)

myancer12 — Mon, 26 Jun 2023 20:46:08 GMT

Measure distance in pdf vs printed. In pdf if I measure it it comes out 8.4".

More screenshots

Re: Printed drawings not scaling correctly

HughesTooling — Sat, 24 Jun 2023 12:36:29 GMT

Can you edit your messages and paste the images into the message please? This forum is rubbish when it comes to viewing attachments. don't know why it doesn't auto embed them like all other forums!

Re: Printed drawings not scaling correctly (please help!)

myancer12 — Sat, 24 Jun 2023 19:11:02 GMT

@HughesTooling @ClintBrown3D

I also tried looking into a ClintBrowns article and have done a totally new test. Both 8.5x11 and 11x17 are skewed by the same factor for an unknown reason. (I cannot print to web as I am not a paying member, that function is greyed out)

Re: Printed drawings not scaling correctly (please help!)

myancer12 — Sun, 25 Jun 2023 15:45:48 GMT

Any help would be much appreciated. Still unable to fix

Re: Printed drawings not scaling correctly

HughesTooling — Mon, 26 Jun 2023 09:38:20 GMT

@myancer12 wrote:

Measure distance in pdf vs printed. In pdf if I measure it it comes out correct: 8.4" scales 1:40 = 28'

Quote from first post in this thread.

@myancer12 wrote:

I have also tried printing to pdf, then sending to the printer with same error in scaling.

Just want to make this clear. So if you print to a PDF it measures correct in Acrobat but when you print the PDF to your printer it's incorrect?

Re: Printed drawings not scaling correctly

myancer12 — Mon, 26 Jun 2023 20:47:11 GMT

In post #5 I show a screenshot of adobe and circled in red there is a measurement of 8.4 inches. That is using the pdf measure tool along the 28' (dimensioned) wall.

Is that correct since 8.4" x40 = 28?

Re: Printed drawings not scaling correctly

HughesTooling — Tue, 27 Jun 2023 11:16:00 GMT

I was more interested if printing that PDF to your printer is correct. You said in the first post that printing a PDF was also wrong but I wanted to make sure you still have that problem with a PDF you've measured. If you do still have a scale problem with a PDF file that Acrobat says is the correct size, surely the scaling error is down to the printer or printer driver?

Something you might find helpful is editing the border and add a line to use as a ruler for checking the scale. Geometry that's part of the border or title block should always show 1:1 dimensions.

Mark