How to get a correctly scaled plan for print?

LayOut
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1

Hi there,

I’m a designer working in LayOut Pro 2022.

I thought I was doing everything right with scaling my documents… turns out I’m not, but I can’t find the solution in videos or online.

So with one project my viewport is scaled 1:100, my Document Set-up is A1, and I have set Page Setup at A1 too, although LayOut seems to flick back to ‘letter’ every time I click off the setting, and then back on.

The document is not 1:100 when viewed on Actual Size, so I’m wondering where I am going wrong?

Please can someone outline a step by step of how they scale their documents correctly, so I can see if I’ve missed something fundamental?

Thanks.

2

Are you printing directly from LayOut? Does your printer support A1? Page size in Page Setup always shows the default page size from your printer driver - yours seems to be Letter (rather odd for a large size plotter)
I usually export PDF files which are then sent to a printshop. When printing yourself, check that any “fit to page”-type settings in your printer driver are disabled.

3

Hi Anssi,

Thank you for getting in touch.

I’m not printing from LayOut, but the contractor is. My computer is linked to an A4 home printer, how do I unlink this from LayOut?

And how do I check that exported PDFs are definitely the right size?

4

You can print part of your A1 PDF on A4 paper using Adobe Acrobat Reader. Just choose Actual Size for print scaling. You can make a sample with lines you can measure using Scaled Drawing and put those on the page where they will be printed.

Screenshot - 6_30_2022 , 8_47_34 AM
Screenshot - 6_30_2022 , 8_47_34 AM777×563 33 KB

Are you certain you have your LayOut file set up correctly? If you want someone to check the file, share it and we’ll take a look.

5

The Page Setup window only deals with the printer you have currently installed. What you get when exporting to PDF is set in the Document Setup>Paper window. And to get PDF files, unless you have a special reason, use the Export function, not a PDF printer.

If your contractor gets shrinked prints from your exported PDF files, tell him to turn off any “shrink to fit” setting in his PDF viewer. When using that printing an A1 sized PDF on A1 sized paper, the whole PDF sheet is shrinked to fit within the printer’s margoins, including the margins that are already there.