Page Setup Dialog

Select File> Print> Page Setup to open the Page Setup dialog.

The Page Setup dialog is only available when an orthogonal view is active. When a perspective view is active, File> Print> Page Setup cannot be selected.

The settings in this dialog, including the selected printer, are specific to the current orthogonal view or layout file, and are saved with the .plan or .layout file.

Click the Printer button to select the current printer or edit its settings. If you have questions about your printer's settings, consult its documentation.

Select the printer paper Size and Source. The options available in these drop-down lists are controlled by the currently selected printer's driver.

Specify the Orientation of the printer paper.

Check Show Page Breaks to display page breaks as grey lines across the drawing sheet in the plan or layout view when Show Sheet is enabled. See "Show Sheet".

Plotters can often have paper inserted into the machine in either of two orientations. Test your own machine and refer to the printer manual to find out which way to insert the paper for correct results.

Specify the Size of the Drawing Sheet, which is the final printed output.

Click the Customize button to open the Customize Sheet Sizes dialog. See "Creating Custom Sheet Sizes".

Specify the Orientation of the drawing sheet, which is the orientation of the entire drawing. The dialog preview at right updates as the orientation is changed.

Check Show Drawing Sheet to display the drawing sheet on screen.

Specify the Drawing Scale for your printed plan. The scale is specified in two parts, which by default are 1 ft = 1 ft or 1 m = 1 m for layout views, and ¼ inch = 1 ft or 1 m = 50 m for all other views. Both imperial and metric units of measurement are available and can be selected independently.

The units of measurement available here can be controlled in the Preferences dialog. See "Unit Conversions Panel".

This scale is applied for printing purposes only and has no effect on the plan scale.

The Drawing Scale acts as the default scale for the Print, Printed Size Input, and Send to Layout dialogs.

Select the Line Weight Scale. See "Line Weights and Scaling".

Check Automatic to have the program specify the line weight scale and adjust it to maintain line thickness and dash size when the drawing scale is changed. Automatic Line Weight Scale is based on a 1/4 inch = 1 foot drawing scale and 1= 1/300 inch line weight scale and is an option for .plan files.

Plan files originally created in one of the Better Homes and Gardens Home Designer products have Automatic checked by default; however, this option is not normally recommended. See "Line Weights".

Automatic Line Weight Scale is not available in .layout files.

Setting the line weight to zero (0) for any object or group of objects causes the line weight to print as thin as is possible.

Check Use These Settings When Converting Old Files and click OK to establish the current settings as the default settings for plans, elevations, and CAD details when opening plans created in earlier versions of Chief Architect. Layout plans must be set separately. See "Text & Page Setup Panel".

A line weight preview shows how changes to the drawing scale affect the printed size of various line weights at the current Drawing Scale.

Clearing Printer Information

Select File> Print> Clear Printer Info to clear the printer-specific information stored in the Page Setup dialog.

This is useful for creating template plans without an associated printer. See "Template Files".