Insert pdf at original size

I have a need to insert pdf’s at their original size, principally for pulling in location plans to scale as part of construction drawings. If I insert or paste they are a seemingly random size which I then cannot 100% adjust to the true scale by dragging (ok, I can get it very close, with a lot of fiddling). It would help if I could snap the pdf to the drawing edges, but that doesn’t seem possible either. I use Swift Publisher - if I drag a pdf onto a page, I can right click and select original size and job done. Is there any way to do this in LO?

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To answer my own post, I’ve realised if I draw an A4 box I can drop the A4 pdf into it and scale it to snap to the edges. This assume I know the size of the incoming pdf, which isn’t too hard to find out. Nonetheless, I’d love to be able to snap to the edges of the page to enable accurate setting out of the drawing on the page.

To answer my own posts again, I realise if I turn on grid and snap to grid I can identify the top and LH side of the page. I tried drawing an A3 box from the top LH corner, but the bottom edge and RH side didn’t quite align with the A3 document, so I’m not sure what’s happening there.

Like you, I am in the UK and use OS extracts frequently.

My first question would be why you are using PDFs in the first place? When I buy extracts, I buy them as DWGs so you have none of the problems fiddling around that you have.

If you are using PDFs to avoid paying for an OS extract, you may be contravening copyright regulations.

Thank you, but I’m certainly not attempting to avoid paying OS license fees (which I always pay) and I’m well aware of copyright law. DWG’s are an option for that particular situation, although I find scaling is still an issue which requires an equal amount of fiddling.

You have a point. For reasons I have never understood, OS maps have to be scaled up when imported into CAD systems. It’s a nuisance. So I guess it’s a question of different strokes. However, importing an image means you cannot interact with the drawing unless you go to the trouble of tracing over it. These days, local authorities seem to be insisting on both location and block plans, both of which can be based on the OS original but I find it easier to do so when I have geometry I can edit and amend as required.

The grid almost never exactly matches the right and bottom sides of the page because the grid spacing would have to match the paper sizing. For example, an A3 sheet is 297mm x 420mm. With a square grid, you could use a 3mm grid spacing to exactly match the page.

It would probably be easier to use the rectangle tool to create a rectangle that starts at the upper-left corner and has the proper size, then snap your imported image to the rectangle.

LayOut does some automatic scaling when importing images, so you may also want to try importing into a document with a large paper size, scale the image to your desired size, and then copy/paste it into your actual document.

-m