TurboCAD Question: Accurate Printing?

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

(Yes I know I have bought Alibre Atom;  but I still have many drawings on TurboCAD, and need it for direct orthographic drawings such as complicated assemblies and general-arrangements.)

I want occasionally to print drawings to true scale as possible, so does anyone know how, please?

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TC’s “Viewport” printing system is hard to use, but I go carefully through all its various menus to set the drawing size, printer size and paper size all to A4, portrait / landscape, and the scale to 1:1.

I know the drawing will overlap the paper so am careful not to select the auto-sizing option. The important areas of the drawing are well within the margins.

Yet measuring the prints shows them nowhere near the drawn dimensions; and there appears no pattern to the errors in the 3 or 4 attempts I made.

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I suspect TurboCAD’s so-called “viewports”. You need create two separate viewports, respectively in “Model Space” and “Paper Space”. I do not know if these two rectangular frames need be identical for an accurate copy, but I have never found any way to set them.

Anyone know, please?

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Suppose you could import them into Alibre and then just print them to a pdf writer PDFs from there. It’s very simple in Alibre and the ones I do come out spot on size so can be used as templates etc.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Thankyou. I’ll try that.

One reason TurboCAD’s printing system is so awkward is that it involves three, I think, separate menus, some repeating the others’ questions, so it’s easy to miss something. One of them lists only American paper sizes, too.

I’ll to have verify which, but I think Alibre and TurboCAD share only one standard file type, and that is .dwf.

I have tried it, just for re-drawing, and I know it is roughly analogous to a .txt file in taking only the basic information without most of the formatting. For my purposes, that does not matter. I simply want basic prints of existing TurboCAD drawings I can edit manually “on the job”, but they need be the right size.

 

It should be possible to print accurately in TurboCAD because it has a scale-setting entry, so I must have missed something, somewhere.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

.DWG is more likely and maybe also .DXF

[Martin ConnellyParticipant @martinconnelly55370]

Just had a look at a TC manual on line to check if it works the same way as AutoCad. As far as I can tell, apart from the actual selection process, the method is the same. Once the viewport is created on the paper in paper space the viewport scale is set to what you want, in your case 1:1. Then when printing your sheet of, for example A4 you print that sheet at 1:1 as well on a piece of A4 or larger paper.

This all assumes that you are drawing in model space at full size and not at a scaled size. When a lot of old school drawing board draughtsmen moved over to CAD they often tried to work the way they had with a drawing board and went to paper space and drew to a suitable scale. Others did not use paper space at all. It caused some problems where I worked when we were sent sub-contractor produced drawings by people who did this. We got a jig drawn for us once where there were 32 sheets (2D) all beautifully drawn at different scales in one drawing and only in model space.

 

Martin C

 

[Nigel Graham 2]

On 11 December 2023 at 23:31 Nigel Graham 2 Said:

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I know the drawing will overlap the paper so am careful not to select the auto-sizing option. The important areas of the drawing are well within the margins.

…

I suspect TurboCAD’s so-called “viewports”…

“Within margins” might be a clue.  It means the requirement is to print part of a drawing at a particular scale, not the whole drawing, and that’s a bit special.  Unless told specifically to select a smaller part of the drawing,  a CAD package is likely to detect that the user’s print settings can’t possibly fit the whole drawing on a page, and override them with something that will.  Or out pops a hard to understand error message.

Have a read of this conversation on the TC forum.   It describes two methods of printing parts of TC drawings, one using select, the other using a viewport.   Neither assumes the page margins will clip the bit of the drawing that’s wanted, if that’s what’s been tried so far.

By the by, does referring to ‘so-called’ viewports suggest a learning issue?   A viewport is a CAD tool, and if the term is alien, I recommend swotting up to understand it.  There’s nothing “so called” about viewports!   Don’t dismiss CAD terminology as jargon – find out what it means and how to use it.   In my experience, learning how to use tools properly saves lots of grief later.   The time and material I’ve wasted teaching myself to mill and turn is horrifying: after 10 years of slow improvement, I still wish I had a real machinist  putting me right in the workshop.

Dave

 

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

On the other hand Alibre will show the size of your piece of paper, the part and if it don’t fit you just get the bit that will fit.

Screen Shot showing A4 paper in blue and the model at it’s actual size. I can move the model about on the sheet if for example I want to print out the bottom

Screen shot in Adobe of what it will print out.

Or I can scale the model to fit the page or specify a larger piece of paper as I can print a£ at home. In this case drawing is 1:2

 

[Peter Cook 6Participant @petercook6]

Are you sure its TurboCAD causing the problem? The (Canon) printer on my PC has several options one of which is to scale the print to fit the page,  another is to automatically reduce prints that are too large for the printer. If one of these is enabled in your printer driver properties, then when TurboCAD outputs aa page on which the “drawing will overlap the paper “, the driver steps in and shrinks things.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Further to Peter’s comment …

Some printers are too clever by half

I had an HP one which printed at slightly different scales for normal and photo prints, and I could find no way of adjusting anything to make them match.

MichaelG.

 

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/file-types/image/raster/dwf-file.html#:~:text=DWF%20is%20short%20for%20Design,above%20all%20accessible%20and%20standardized.

 

[DC31kParticipant @dc31k]

If you get really stuck, install a pdf printer and print the document to a pdf file. Print out the pdf and measure some nominal dimension. Work out a scale factor. In the print options for the pdf file, adjust the scale factor and reprint.

Old fashioned drawing office way: print out on paper to any old scale, work out scale factor using ruler, use zoom function on photocopier.

In every drawing you have, make a 100mm long graduated ruler as part of the drawing. Print it out at the same time as the drawing. Use scissors to cut it out from the page. It will always match the drawing’s scale.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Oooh, we have the reply function back from its day off!

 

Dave –

I know what TurboCAD’s ‘viewports’ are for – copying drawings from the Model Space to the Paper Space – though I admit I should have said something like “….. what TurboCAD calls viewports…” rather than “so-called”. The system is baffling though, and I can’t see why it has to be so complicated and confusing.

Anyway I saved the general-arrangement TurboCAD drawing I wanted as a 403kB dwg file, but notice it also created a 1kB .dwl file. ??? (More fun and games because Win-11 has given me a primary directory and folder system far more vague, chaotic and clumsy than any previous system right back to Win-3.)

I was able to open it in Alibre, then I made two copies, one side and one rear, elevation.

Working only on the copies I could now strip away all the rest of what had admittedly been an incomplete tangle subject to a lot of revision, as it is part of a project that has to be designed as it goes. And stops. And goes….

This revealed the drawing was a mass of many Layers and innumerable line fragments, some stacked “below” visible ones. They kept raising a “Change Layer” option – which meant little and did less. Selecting Layers on the tool-bar opened an impressive list of them presumably carried over from TurboCAD and re-named, but Alibre could only act on one. I could select that by dragging a box around the area to be removed, and deleting those highlighted. This left the rest, right down to tiny specks on the screen, removable only by highlighting each one-by-one and deleting them several at a time.

Once I’d cleaned the two drawings I tried printing them, despite the printer menu telling me the paper is of “Legal” size whatever that was – and with no choice.

I knew a lot of the image would be off the paper; but more importantly the few dimensions left on the drawings were indeed accurate. The 7-inch centre-distance was indeed 7 inches on the print.

Phew!

In fact I already had established Alibre does print to size on my PC and A4 printer.

It doesn’t answer my original question though – why I can’t print a TurboCAD drawing to size. It emerges either reduced or enlarged, randomly, despite every care in setting it up.

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Regarding Adobe and .pdf files, I did not try that route.

I know almost nothing about them; but both .pdf and (the related?) .~x types have given me a lot of trouble in the past. So I avoid them as much as possible.

It does seem my Hewlett-Packard printer will reproduce an Alibre drawing faithfully to size, so the problem is not there. I need it also to reproduce a TurboCAD drawing faithfully, and it doesn’t probably by me missing something glaringly obvious and simple to all the CAD experts!

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DC31k –

Well yes, I could add a scale-bar to the drawing, or make a paper rule, but I’m afraid that is a recipe for disaster when trying to use the print to work out on a part-built project which bit to make next so it has some chance of success and won’t cause problems trying to accommodate other bits yet to be made.

Worse, there is no consistency. Each attempt I made differed from the others, so a rule made from one print would be wrong for another.

I am not translating a machine manufacturer’s drawings to those for a working model version. I am trying to make a working model from old trade advertisements of a machine whose original drawings are as extinct as the manufacturer and machine itself. Trying to assess dimensions from ancient photos and a few published dimensions not necessarily of the same examples is bad enough, without putting the same problems in the drawings I make.

[Nigel Graham 2]

On Nigel Graham 2 Said:

 

…a rule made from one print would be wrong for another.

You print the ruler with the drawing and it stays with the print of that drawing. Use it with that print and that print only. When you sever it from the paper, write a number on it, and write the same number on the piece of paper so they stay together.

Then, it does not matter how the drawing prints. If you reprint the drawing and it comes out a different scale, use the new ruler that appears on the new print.

[Nigel Graham 2]

On Nigel Graham 2 Said:

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Anyway I saved the general-arrangement TurboCAD drawing I wanted as a 403kB dwg file, but notice it also created a 1kB .dwl file. ??? …

Recommended reading:

https://www.cadforum.cz/en/qaID.asp?tip=3186#:~:text=DWL%20(DraWing%20Lock)%20files%20(,locked%20by%20another%20application%22).

MichaelG.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Legal paper size is another interesting one:

https://pdf.wondershare.com/business/legal-paper-size.html

MichaelG.

[TomfileryParticipant @tomfilery]

Nigel,

I note that there is some good advice above (particularly in respect of printers automatically resizing when the image exceeds the paper size) and which you wil wish to investigate.

I wonder if you are getting mixed up in respect of Viewports in TurboCad?  You mention setting Viewports in both model space and paper space, which is wrong (if that IS what you are doing).  What you are supposed to do is set a Viewport in model space and then open a View in paper space (which then displays the drawing in the Viewport).

If your model is actual size (i.e. you are not needing to scale it to fit on the paper) don’t bother with the Viewport.  Instead, simply copy the desired lines to the clipboard and paste it into paper space.  Obviously, this will mean that the paper space is not linked to the model, so any subsequent changes made on the model will not automatically appear in the paper space.

Also, if you need to create a DXF, or DWG, to allow import into another program, select the items to be transferred, copy, then paste them into a new blank drawing and save that as the DXF, or DWG.  If just save your original drawing as a DXF, all the layers and multiple paper spaces get bundled together and give the sort of jumble you appear to have found in Alibre when importing into it.

I frequently export drawings, or bits of them, from TurboCad to DXF for use in CamBam and then to my CNC router, so I know it does work.

Regards Tom

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

DC31k –

I don’t want clumsy work-rounds. Using CAD is hard enough for me as it is.

Individual rulers did occur to me but it makes a very messy situation. An assortment of randomly out-of-scale drawings with their own rulers is inconvenient, awkward to use, risks confusion, and is just bad practice. You can’t print templates, nor can you print paper layers.*

If the CAD package and the printer each allow printing to a set scale – 1:1 or 1:[other integer] – I need know how to link them so they can.

When Victorian and Edwardian designers produced scale drawings, they used integer scales and stated the scale on the drawing, sometimes with a rule too, but the scales were never random.

Printing to scale on my HP printer works for original and imported drawings in Alibre. It should work in TurboCAD, but isn’t and that’s what I want to solve.

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Michael –

I might have guessed “Legal” is some archaic size used in the USA, presumably nowhere else, just to be different! I take it lawyers in “Europe and some other countries” use A4 sheets, not US “Legal”. I wonder how a US court would handle a case in which one side is from a nation that uses only A4 paper, if it demands seeing the original documents.

I didn’t realise it comes in 4 lengths, too. I can understand Canada also using these, but I see Japan uses yet another entirely. I suppose in time all three countries will go ISO, grudgingly.

“Europe and some other countries”…. it says. Many Americans apparently think “Europe” is a single country, and they don’t realise that virtually all other countries now use ISO systems as a matter of course.

When I tried that print, the American-designed printer decided it was loaded with “legal” size paper – same width as A4 even if the lengths  are different. It did not ask me to select the size.

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I looked at that link about .dwl files…..

I take it you knew I’d not understand it! 🙂

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*Manual drawing often uses translucent sheets in physical “layers”, for example to trace a component onto an assembly drawing, or test clearances.  I thought “layers” in CAD is the equivalent, but I’m probably wrong there.

I see Alibre uses Layers. I leave that to the experts.

TurboCAD has “Layers” and “Blocks”. Either both are for copying parts of drawings; or the Layers are for pre-formatting lines and Blocks are for… I don’t know.

The Layers tool invites setting different line types (outlines, centre-lines, dimensions, specific parts, etc)… but the drawing automatically ignores most of that.

So often, I use only Layer 1 for everything and format the lines separately anyway. While copying a sub-assembly and placing the copy accurately, in TurboCAD, is very laborious and difficult, even in 2D.

(Does Alibre Atom allow setting line formats for the elevation drawings?)

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

This site played up again, and first stopped replies then failed to show Tom’s message despite it being in the e-post list!

…..

Thank you all.

I’ve now found the command I’d not spotted or known about in TurboCAD: “Activate”, in the Paper Space’s viewport list.

The drawing I tried was not a very good example as I had to scale it by 1:5, but its print showed it was right by steel-rule measure.

……

Now then, importing…..

I teased out one component from that messy GA, saved it in its own Alibre drawing (still a 2D image), cleared the dimensions and other clutter, added a line to close its outline where it had been eclipsed in the original. I also worked out how to put it all on one new layer (I think), guessing that would be necessary. It lost all the centre-lines and things.

Only that’s not very useful because it’s just one view. I assume it’s possible to turn it into a 3D model in Alibre terms, but could not work out how. It stayed as a 2D Drawing but of only one elevation, and one I could not dimension either.

Trying to create an Alibre sketch by constructing that over the imported outline gave all sorts of weird problems. Magnifying it also showed the import was not closed so could not have been extruded in TurboCAD either.

…

Perhaps I should keep the TurboCAD GA drawings in TurboCAD, and draw the individual parts’ full elevations in that; not worry about Alibre versions of them. I could not produce 3D Assemblies of them in either package anyway.

This would create two partial sets of drawings for the same project, in totally different CAD forms, but though that’s not good practice it might not matter too much.

[David JuppParticipant @davidjupp51506]

Nigel,

At least with simple parts it is fairly simple to turn a 2D drawing import into an Alibre 3D part….

https://help.alibre.com/articles/#!alibre-help-v27/create-a-3d-part-from-an-imported-2d-dxf-or-dwg

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

david beat me to it but I’ll post the image sof this example anyway.

This is a DWG that someone sent me of a Fowler waggon, all parts for the waggon on one “sheet” I want to 3D model the part ringed in green.

Zoomed in and selected then copied the bit I wanted

Pasted into a new 2D sketching screen and tidied up as ctr lines and hidden detail had carried over as solid

I can then deactivate the sketch and extrude it to the required width

There are some holes that were shown on another elevation, I could do the same process again with those and then Cut-extrude them rather than have to draw them.

It’s a bit complex and you would probably be better off redrawing the old tC parts in Alibre which would be good practice and improve your Alibre skills no end

[Nigel Graham 2]

On Nigel Graham 2 Said:

 

….

Michael –

I might have guessed “Legal” is some archaic size used in the USA, presumably nowhere else, just to be different! I take it lawyers in “Europe and some other countries” use A4 sheets, not US “Legal”. I wonder how a US court would handle a case in which one side is from a nation that uses only A4 paper, if it demands seeing the original documents.

I didn’t realise it comes in 4 lengths, too. I can understand Canada also using these, but I see Japan uses yet another entirely. I suppose in time all three countries will go ISO, grudgingly.

“Europe and some other countries”…. it says. Many Americans apparently think “Europe” is a single country, and they don’t realise that virtually all other countries now use ISO systems as a matter of course.

When I tried that print, the American-designed printer decided it was loaded with “legal” size paper – same width as A4 even if the lengths  are different. It did not ask me to select the size.

.

I looked at that link about .dwl files…..

I take it you knew I’d not understand it! 🙂

………

 

I think you’ve sussed the Legal business, Nigel

… I can’t help regarding your printer’s predilections, but I would definitely suggest that you train it to do your will

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The significant point about the dwl file is that it is only produced to enable ‘collaborative working ‘ [something which I have never done, in CAD at least]
My own experience of Autocad was confined to its DOS versions, and I only ever scratched the surface of TurboCad.

I doubt if I will be able to contribute anything more; so I just wish you well on the difficult journey … I truly admire your perseverance !

MichaelG.

[David JuppParticipant @davidjupp51506]

For information ‘Legal’ paper used to be moderately common in UK.  I have quite a few batch test reports from a steel works, produced in mid 1960s – all on Legal size paper.

[Nigel Graham 2]

On Nigel Graham 2 Said:

…

Once I’d cleaned the two drawings I tried printing them, despite the printer menu telling me the paper is of “Legal” size whatever that was – and with no choice.

I knew a lot of the image would be off the paper; but more importantly the few dimensions left on the drawings were indeed accurate. The 7-inch centre-distance was indeed 7 inches on the print.

Phew!

In fact I already had established Alibre does print to size on my PC and A4 printer.

It doesn’t answer my original question though – why I can’t print a TurboCAD drawing to size. It emerges either reduced or enlarged, randomly, despite every care in setting it up.

.

…

Well, think about how computer programmers go about solving the print problem, and the many things that have to be done right.

1. The printer is a mechanical device that moves paper and print head so that ink can be spat accurately into position to create images, possibly in colour.   The printer’s firmware (built-in program), has to receive a file sent by the user, decode it, check ink levels,paper loaded etc. and then control the motors and pumps needed to transfer the image accurately to paper.   The printer programmer has to decide what to do if the printer is loaded with A4 paper and the file content says the application calls for US Legal,  A3 or some other size.  One choice is to throw an error, another is to resize the image to fit the paper available.   There are dozens of other incompatibilites, for example the user might set an Inkjet printer to save ink at 150 dots per inch, whilst the file sent by the computer calls for 1200DPI.  Generally, programmers implement ‘the principle of least surprise’, but there are too many choices.   There is no guarantee that the programmer of a Brother Laser printer will do the same as his Inkjet colleague in Hewlett Packard!   The user may have to understand what his printer settings do when the computer has other ideas.
2. CAD software creates and manipulates 3 dimensional models that can be displayed on screen as wire-frames, plain solids, or photo-realistic objects.  They can be viewed from any angle, with or without perspective, and printed.  Printing is often done by translating the screen buffer (pixels) into a file format recognised by printers.  These days, almost all printers are graphical, so PDF,  Postscript, or HPJL for multi-page documents, or JPG, TIFF, PNG etc for screenshots.   The CAD software has a print  menu controlling scale, print resolution, paper size, and a bunch of other settings.   The user has to set these sensibly to match his printer: again the CAD programmer has choices when user CAD and physical printer settings don’t match.  For example, if the CAD package is told the paper is A0, and the printer is loaded with US Legal, what happens?  One option is for the programmer to grey out incompatible settings and stop, another is to split the A0 image and print it on multiple Legal pages so the user can tape them back together, a third is to send it to the printer and hope the printer can sort it out.
3. As if this wasn’t complicated enough, there is almost always another major program between CAD and the printer.  Computer operating systems support many logins and many different printers at the same time, including connecting to printers hosted by other computers.  Thus printers are rarely directly connected to a user program.  Instead, programs all send print jobs to a common spooler owned by the operating system that queues and directs them.   Spoolers also understand what each connected printer is capable of, and might fiddle with incompatible settings and formats to make them work.
4. Lastly, many printers require a driver.  This is the software that links the printer and computer hardware together.  Drivers also influence how printers behave, and if the driver doesn’t support a printer feature, there’s no way a user application can activate it.

Normally, all this stuff ‘just works’.   CAD is more complicated than most applications though because it has many more print options, in this example selecting part of a model and printing it to a specific scale.   Doing anything special may require a deeper understanding of how TurboCAD and printer cooperate.   Most things can be done by fiddling with the printer and application settings, but occasionally the spooler needs attention.   Drivers cause a lot trouble, which is why they should be kept up-to-date.  Ancient software is a pain when it goes wrong, causing all manner of difficult to diagnose faults.

I think the reason the page size is set to Legal and greyed out, is that something else in the chain is set ‘legal’, and it has priority.  Could be the printer defaults to Legal until some A4 paper is loaded.   Or maybe TurboCAD defaults to US paper sizes until told not too.  Or perhaps the active viewport is set to legal, and the one open on screen isn’t.

Check everything: as always difficult problems often turn out to be easy once you know the answer!     Keep it as simple as possible:  draw a circle in TC and print it without worrying about scale.  Only after ink hits paper, experiment with scale and other controls.  The purpose is to learn how TC print works, not to print a full-blown drawing.   That comes next.   A good way to fail is to start with a tricky print manipulation using a complex drawing that might be broken inside.  Too many variables result in hideous confusion…

Dave

Dave

 

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Michael –

My A4 printer will reproduce the image faithfully. I think the A3 one will as well, when it’s back from the repairer! Both are HP machines. It was a matter of me not realising all the steps necessary between CAD image and printer.

Alibre Atom seems to do a lot of it directly and automatically (perhaps by identifying the printer), but TurboCAD is a lot more roundabout, with many steps.

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David –

“Legal” paper size may have been among all those other intriguingly-named paper sizes we had before the ISO flattened everything to mere numbers!

My A3 printer isn’t sure what it is. It was sold as an A3 printer/scanner/copier but although it will print on A3 sheets its copier platen is quite a bit smaller, possibly some US size.

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Jason –

There seems so much work converting a TurboCAD drawing to an Alibre one that drawing the same things directly in Alibre is probably more efficient… as well as good practice in Alibre!

Since I’m trying to draw parts half-designed on a TC general-arrangement I might best simplify a copy of the GA (remove partly-hidden components), dimension it then print that to tell me the shapes and sizes for all-new Alibre versions.

[Nick WheelerParticipant @nickwheeler]

Dave, your list left out Nigel’s penchant for using one program to manipulate and display the output from another. Which is odd, because he doesn’t want ‘crude workarounds’.

[Author]

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