I have created a couple of 2D drawings using SketchUp Pro. I have a trial license. I can get them to display nicely on the monitor, but when I try to print them, the drawings come out really tiny on the printout. I was able to get them both to print to an appropriate scale, but something changed and I can’t seem to get back to the scale where the drawings fill an 8 1/2 by 11 page. I’ve tried different page size settings in the printer pages.
It would be much easier to help you get this sorted if you share the .skp file with us. Since you have SketchUp Pro, the easiest thing would be to send it to LayOut, set the view to the desired scale and then export a PDF for printing.
Dave
Here are the two files. Thank you for your help!
pool deck.skp (95.4 KB) North face.skp (103.7 KB)
In the pool deck drawing, the first thing you need to do is get rid of some stray entities. There’s a label and some text way off to the right of the model and a few stray line segments to the left. Hitting Zoom Extents gives you this view. You should also get in the habit of keeping your model close to the origin. Sticking it out at some random distance can create problems for you.
Stray text. Model is to the left in the cluster of dimensions.
Stray edge segments are between the model and the green axis.
After getting rid of the waste and hitting Zoom Extents.
If you want to print directly from SketchUp and you want the drawing to fill the paper, first, resize the model window so it more closely matches the shape of the model.
In Print setup, choose the correct paper orientation.
And in Print or Print Preview, deselect both Fit to page and Use Model Extents. Then you can set a scale. I selected 1:72 because your model would fit on an letter-size sheet of paper.
And click OK. The model fills the page.
Easier would be to set up a scene in SketchUp and send to LayOut. When LayOut is open, choose the desired paper size and with the view port selected, choose the desired scale for the drawing. I also set the viewport to render as Vector. From here you can print or export a PDF to print or send to a print shop. Especially nice if you need a print on larger paper than you can print on. And this could be a multiple page document if needed.
Better to do the dimensioning in LayOut as you have better control of the appearance of the dimensions.
Keep in mind that SketchUp is a 3D modeling application. You could be getting much more information out of a project model in 3D. I assume your “North face.skp” file is related to the pool deck file? With SU they should be a single 3D model. This would make your work easier and reduce the chance of errors. You can get your 2D plan and elevation views out of the 3D model to use for dimensioned drawings, and when changes come along they will be much easier to manage.
If you are only going to make 2D drawings, you could do those strictly in LayOut.
It would be a good idea to spend some time going through the tutorials at learn.sketchup.com
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OK! Thanks for the help! I was able to send the model to Layout. I see how that works.