Sketchup Free Printing issues

SketchUp
1

I’m trying to print a section of a model that has dimensions included but whenever I print it (Print to PDF) the dimensions are barely visible because they are so small. Everything looks fine before I have to create a PDF to print. Also, the dimensions move on their own accord when trying to scale it to fit the printing page… I had to reorient it several times before getting a workable draft but then the print size was an added surprise. I could just write the dimensions with a pen but what is the point of the software if you can’t use its functions. Is this a ‘Free’ version slap to try to get you to buy it? I only use it a few times a year, not worth it.

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Hi @Jmat23; this sounds like a bug. We’ll take a look and update with any progress. So, not a slap to anybody: just something to be fixed regardless of whether you decide to buy the software.

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While we’re looking into this, here are a couple of things you could try that might help you get a better printing result.

  • Try creating scenes to save views of the model you want to print. That way, when you are previewing your print, it’s really just a matter of zooming in or out, or choosing the correct page layout (landscape or portrait). This should help with the issue of the dimensions disappearing. You can create scenes from the panel on the right-hand side of the screen.
  • If you’re still having issues with unpredictable dimension visibility, consider drawing your dimensions in a plan or elevation view. You can switch to these views in the Scenes panel. This could help as when you draw dimensions in 3D, you might be pulling them out in 3D space farther than necessary.
  • While reproducing this bug, I found that choosing landscape or portrait has a big impact on the legibility of dimension text. We still need to fix this bug, but this might help you out.
  • Last workaround you could consider in the short term is changing the size of the dimension text size. You can do this by selecting your dimension entities and then going to the Entity Info panel (the top icon on the right-hand side menu). This should be a last resort, though.
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