exporting, plotting, scaling for beginners

[Anonymous]

hey guys, please excuse my ignorance, I'm pretty new to CAD... can someone kindly give me the basics on how to export my drawing correctly to PDF regarding scales. OK so the situation is, I've completed my drawing, it's in 1:1 scale, I now want to export it to PDF, so I export from the "layout 1" page, I check that its in 1:1, then I "scale the selected viewport" and it appears to Zoom in to the correct scale, but now, the problem is that most of my drawing is no longer in the viewport... so when I export, the whole drawing isn't on the page.. and if I "fit to page" then its no longer in the correct scale, right??? .... so, how do I export the full drawing, to the right page size, in the right scale ???

cheers.

Dave.

[Patchy]

While in layout tab, type in PAGESETUP and select your sheet size, PDF driver and select the scale to plot.

[Anonymous]

Hey Patchy, yer, I've been through page set up a number of times, but there is def something i'm not getting here..  if i export in 1:1 onto A4, i just get a tiny version of my drawing in the corner.. what im trying to do is fit the whole drawing onto A4 in 1:1, is that even possible ? just explain it as if to someone that has never worked with scales or CAD 🙂 appreciate the help!  

[Patchy]

Post your .dwg and let's see (I need 2007 version though)

[Anonymous]

I'm using autocad 2021 free as a student.. does that mean you cant view it ?

[Patchy]

Sure, just do save as and click on 2007 version.

[Anonymous]

here's the drawing 

[Anonymous]

I don't seem to have that option? 

[Patchy]

I plot it like this:

[pendean]

You missed a few steps.

You have to set the viewport to a scale first, otherwise all you get is whatever random scale you have by default. Read this https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/autocad/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2020/ENU/AutoC...

Then you set the PDF driver and page size in PAGESETUP in your layout to match the viewport you end up with at the scale you need.

Try it. Watch this too https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLWnBdv1mhk

[Anonymous]

many thanks to both of you, but im still not getting this.. I'll watch the vid, thank you. Whats the PDF drivers ? I dont seem to have that option either ? and whats the "plot area " do i set it to extents ? window? layout ?

[Anonymous]

this what I end up with.

[jrsimmons4 · Accepted solution]

If you want to plot your drawing at 1:1 scale,  you'll need to have a "paper" size set up that will fit your drawing in a viewport. If your "paper" size is too small, you'll either have your drawing scaled down to fit on the paper or as you mentioned, part of your drawing will not appear. I looked at your drawing and it is roughly 160 inches square. So therefore, at 1:1, you'd need to make a paper sheet at least that size.

Your screenshot above shows you picking a default A4 sheet size (8.5"x11"), so in order for your drawing to fit on a "paper" of that size via PDF it would need to be scaled down. Applying a scale of 1/2"=1'-0" to your viewport would allow for your entire drawing to appear on an A4 sheet. But it won't be 1:1.

[Anonymous]

So... On my legend, it says "scale 1:100" because that's the scale in the CAD model... But then when I export it to pdf, if I "fit to page" it will obviously create a custom scale to accommodate the full drawing on that chosen paper size, or as you say, I simply choose a scale that fits the page size best.. BUT now I've done this, I'm going to have to change the scale in the legend yes? And if its a custom scale, then that will look a bit silly right? What I mean is, on everybody else's drawings they normally have 1:100 or 1:200 or for the topographicals it's 1:1000... They don't normally have these custom scales listed in the legend... I realise my understanding of all this is pretty poor 🤦‍♂️

[Anonymous]

Thank you all, for your comments and guidance, I understand this a lot better now.