PDF DRAWINGS CLIPED in Alibre Atom 3D

[David George 1Participant @davidgeorge1]

Alebre Atom 3D creating PDF files of drawings I get a clipped drawing on the right hand side and wondered if it is a setting I have on my PC or is it the PDF software on my PC

David

[David JuppParticipant @davidjupp51506]

David,

What PDF writer is Atom3D set to use?  The ‘Use built in PDF writer’ option should work well.  That’s in System Options -> Drawings -> PDF.

 

 

 

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Is it clipped on the atom drawing screen or only when being viewed as a pdf.

May be worth checking the paper size of the template that you used

also how are you saving them as a pdf, I use print and a PDF writer (not built in) and have not had problems though I mostly make my own template.

[David JuppParticipant @davidjupp51506]

‘Publish to PDF’ will use the PDF writer defined in the system options,  using Print lets you to choose the ‘printer’.

I find there is less to go wrong if using Publish to PDF.

[Ian PParticipant @ianp]

Regardless of what program or application I am printing from I always ‘preview’ before I press print.

Preview should show you what will actually appear on the paper or in the file.

To print to file I use ‘Primo PDF’ by Nitro. Its free and does not watermark the output, it just works.

Ian P

 

[David George 1Participant @davidgeorge1]

Thanks for replies’ I decided to print to PDF and the result was a full page drawing  but when I published to PDF it came out cropped so I will have to print to pdf for further drawings.

David

[David JuppParticipant @davidjupp51506]

David,

I suggest that you check the selected PDF writer in System Options as Publish to PDF should work – however some PDF default software provided with Windows is particularly bad and should not be set as the PDF writer for Atom3D.

The ‘built in PDF writer’ provided with Atom3D usually works well – if not this should be reported to Alibre support for investigation.

[David George 1Participant @davidgeorge1]

New image printed to PDF .

[David George 1]

On David George 1 Said:

New image printed to PDF .

Check the scale is correct!  A likely cause is one of David’s PDF programs defaults to print at actual size, whereas the other  defaults to resize the drawing to fit within the physical page margins of whatever printer and paper size his computer has selected.

The first attempt may be correctly at 1:1 scale and clipped because the drawing is too big to fit on a real sheet of paper.  Looks wrong, but it’s right.  The second attempt may have rescaled the drawing to fit on the page, which is usually what’s wanted for non-technical work.    Looks right, but it’s wrong if a technical drawing must be actual size.

If PDF is saved to a file, the print isn’t constrained by the local printer.  The file can be taken to a commercial printer who can do much bigger ‘pages’, usually A0 wide, almost as long as you like, from a paper roll, not sheets.

Printing is complicated, which is why most technical drawings show dimensions, and the warning “DO NOT SCALE”. I’ve been caught so many times I always triple-check the scale when it matters.  Also a good idea to check the printer by giving it a perfect circle to draw:  it may come out oval or egg-shaped!

Dave

 

 

 

 

 

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Is it possible that the default page size needs to be changed in Alibre?

[Martin ConnellyParticipant @martinconnelly55370]

I think it is a scale setting that needs checking. The usual print options are scale to 100%, scale to fit, scale to a selected value or print current view. The result that comes out will depend on the paper size selected. An A4 drawing may be 97% if scaled to fit on a piece of A4 as the printer driver will have details of non-printing margins for the selected printer. Selecting 100% may result in some cropping around the edges. The same drawing on an A2 sheet would increase to about 140% if scaled to fit and would fit nicely at 100% with plenty of spare paper around the edge. Print current view combined with scale to fit is good for picking out a bit of detail for a working drawing when you do not need the page cluttered with too much other detail and at a size that is easy to read.

Martin C

[David JuppParticipant @davidjupp51506]

The question here related to PDFs.   Because of all the variables mentioned here by others, Alibre includes a ‘Publish to PDF’ and also provides a ‘built in PDF writer’ option – if the built in writer is selected, and Publish to PDF is used, the sizing will just work.  The paper size (from drawing template) is picked up automatically and used to produce the PDF.

All the user has to do is make sure not to place any visible content outside the page border when producing the drawing.

If a PDF writer other than the built-in one is used, or if the Print option is used, then all the mentioned issues of print scaling, wrong sheet size, poor drivers, etc. can apply.

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi, PDF’s are fairly simple to make, and they can then be printed on just about any size paper you like, but you need to get the settings correct for whose ever PDF printer you use, and of coarse the physical printer that you wish to print a hard copy on.

As many will know, I scanned all the early free plans that came inside the early copies of MEW, these were all saved as TIFF images @ 300 dpi making them around 30 MB in size and to the original physical size, which was on a 787 x 297 folded up sheet inside each issue, so you would need a large format printer to print them to their full original size. My Canon Pixma pro9000 can print a maximum sheet of 23″ x 14″ (584 x 355 approximately) and does make a reasonable size drawing of these plans.

I have converted most of these to PDF’s, using Fox Tab PDF converter, and so I’ve printed one of these on a 23″ x 9″ sheet, one on an A3 sheet and one on an A4 sheet, and they all retain the same shape, although different sizes. Now you would think that they all had the same aspect ratio, but the 23 x9 one was different. According to an online calculator, the original drawing has an aspect ratio of 11:4, and so did the A3 and A4 ones, the 23 x 9 one though has an aspect ratio of 190:69, but if you divide 11 by 4 you get 2.75, but if you divide 190 by 69 you get 2.75362> which is near enough the same, which I think would be hard for anyone to spot the difference, photos of the prints in order 23 x 9, A3 and A4.

The paper sizes were set by my Pro 9000 software

Although the A4 one being just under a quarter the area of the original, I can read it without any difficulty.

My Laptop has a PDF printer installed, but has limited paper sizes to choose from, and doesn’t include a custom setting, but I still needed to make sure in the printing pane, that the “Fit picture to frame” was unchecked for all three of  these prints, otherwise you get what you see.

 

Regards Nick.

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