I have a couple of questions that perhaps you can help with. I am wondering about several things.
If I am going to output to a large format printer, what do I save the file as? I should add, I dont have such a printer but a friend does and she will print it for me.
Do I save it as a pdf? This is what she thinks. Her computer doesn’t have the sketchup software running on it.
I want to print at full size so my model will be a couple of meters tall and a meter wide.
Does anyone know where I can find a guide for this?
Hi,
Sorry for the late reply. I am not sure of printer stats but it is a big commercial thing that takes a roll about a meter/yard wide.
I am after good quality but i will be using the print to make a template so it doesn’t have to be outstanding.
In the past I did it successfully once but that was several years ago and I forgot how I did it!
Any ideas you have would be helpful. I think it was a pdf I printed from.
Kind Regards,
Simon.
Since you want to make a template, set up a scene in SketchUp with the camera set to Parallel Projection and the appropriate standard view. Save the file and then send it to LayOut. In File>Document Setup>Paper, select a paper size that is large enough to show the pattern at full size. Right click on the viewport and select Scale and choose 1:1. Drag the edges of the viewport as needed so you can see the whole pattern and make sure it’s all on the paper. Export to PDF and then open in Reader or Acrobat and print.
Thanks David. I had a quick look at layout this morning and I didn’t notice a paper size that would cater for my model which is 1400mm tall and 500 wide. Is there a paper size that big?
alternatively you might want install the according printer driver by using the output port “FILE:” (instead of USB/LAN/LPT). Configure an appropriate paper size (custom size if long axis plot) for printing to a corresponding printer file (typically in the HP-RTL or HP-GL/2 format).
You can evaluate the output with a plot viewer application as e.g. fine ‘S-Plot’.
The native printer file can be copied to the device w/o any scaling issues which may arise if using a PDF. If copying via the Windows console (e.g. “copy /b XYZ.prn LPT1:”) is uncomfortable, the free ‘PrintFile’ can be used for doing this.
I use print to pdf advanced options (paper sizes)…and use the ‘postscript custom page size’ option to enter any paper size dimensions height/width/metric/imperial/sheet/roll into the various boxes. My pdf option of choice is cutewriter.
