Printing features

Some things that constantly bug me.

  • Persistent watermarks. I would like to set the watermark on a file once and forget it. I have to type it in every time when I print. This is really annoying. (On the fence as to whether the “Save As” feature should change the watermark.)
  • Print file name + timestamp as a global preference. It would be useful if you could get the printer to print this on the top or bottom of the page.
  • Persistent page orientation as a global preference. There is no reason why page orientation should automatically use the machine default. 100% of the time, I am printing in landscape mode, but I have to change this every time I print after opening a new file.

Persistent watermarks: You could create a watermark in either SketchUp or LayOut and include it as part of your own custom template.

File name and time stamp: You can have these things established as part of your custom template in LayOut.

Page orientation: This is set as part of the template in LayOut.

Generally speaking, I find the interactions between SketchUp and LayOut to be so abysmal that I have abandoned LayOut entirely. So anything that says “just do this thing in LayOut” is not really helpful.

That leaves the first item. “part of your own custom template”? Please elaborate.

Open SU, adjust everything to suit, watermark, page orientation, style, units etc etc then go File/Save as Template and you have a specific custom template.
Change the watermark and save as template again with a different name and all the other settings are the same but the watermark has changed.
Do this as many times as needed to create the various styles of starting templates that you want.
Do the same in Layout.

This isn’t really a feature request, just a how do I…

If the template addresses print page orientation, I don’t see where it does that. I changed print page orientation to landscape, did File → Save As Template …, and opened a new window based on that template. The print orientation from File → Page Setup was still portrait.

Don’t know what to tell you, it works for me. Perhaps it’s the type of printer or some other setting. I rarely print anything so it’s not something I have looked at in detail.