Plotting projects

[vasiqshair]

Project plotting is indeed a useful tool; life's a lot easier when you don't have to print 20 drawings separately. But like everything else, you have to know how to use the tool. lol. I am likely not looking at the right place but I don't see where the plotter gives you an option for page setup: portrait vs landscape, (11" x 17") vs (8" x 11.5"). I just plotted to PDF and the drawing only takes up half the page-- a page that's of some size that I didn't specify. I need it to be 11 x 17 landscape. Any suggestions on how to configure page setup, when plotting to either PDF or straight to printer?

[trabuck7]

That information is set in the page setup dialog box. I always set my paper size there and my plot area is always set to Extents. My plot scale is fit to paper and I always center the plot as well. You don't need to define a printer when plotting to PDF.

[JeffatPrimex · Accepted solution]

The drawing you attached is Arch D size which is fine and the settings for this size would be something like:

In theory, setting scale 1:1 means your text and geometry will be exactly the size in the real world if the paper you plot this on is the same size in this case 24 x 36. So if you are always going to print B size then you should setup your border as B size and again scale it 1:1. keep in mind all your blocks would most likely need to be scaled down to look good on the B size border.  

Once you have your page setups defined and working you should save this drawing as your default page setups which you can then share with others and use to import from using the publish to pdf like:

IMO printing has become very cumbersome over the years I remember a time when all I had to do was select my drawings and a config file. Now it's Twelve easy steps to plotting! that was an actual heading of an article form Autodesk that came out after their 2000 release I think. No joke! It was so bad Nate created the project plotting manger to compensate.

Best regards,

Jeff