Setting the scale and view

The printed drawing includes what is visible on the screen and within the print area you specify. You can print or plot the entire drawing or a selected portion, depending on which options you select in the Scale/View tab of the Print dialog box.

You can control the position of the drawing on the paper by specifying the origin of the print area, the location of the lower left corner of the plot area, in relation to the lower left corner of the paper. The origin is normally set to 0,0, which places the lower left corner of the print area as close to the lower left corner of the paper as the printer or plotter can print. You can specify a different origin, however, by specifying different coordinates.

When you create a drawing, you generally draw entities full size. When you plot the drawing, you can specify the scale of the resulting print or let the program adjust the size of the drawing to fit the paper. To plot the drawing at a specific scale, specify the scale as a ratio of drawing units to printed units.

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Changing the magnification of your drawing

Displaying multiple views

Organizing information on layers

Using named views

Using plotter drivers

How do I...

Automatically scale the drawing for printing

Change the scale of a floating viewport relative to paper space

Preview the drawing before printing

Print a drawing

Specify a header and footer

Specify a portion of the drawing to print

Specify the print area origin

Specify the scale factor yourself