Display Options and Printing

The display of objects in views may be used to affect the printed output. Some display options allow you to preview the printed output on screen before any paper is used.

Objects must be visible for them to print, but not all items that are visible print. Camera symbols in floor plan view, CAD points, and the snap and reference grids, for example, do not print. The Reference Display prints if it is visible. See "Reference Floor".

To see how your printed output will appear on paper, select File> Print> Print Preview or click the Print Preview toggle button.

Displaying Objects

You can control the display of objects when printing directly from a view in the Layer Display Options dialog. See "Layer Display Options Dialog".

To control the display of objects in an orthogonal view sent to layout, select the view, click the Layout Box Layers

edit button, and make any needed changes in the Layer Display Options dialog.

To control the display of objects in a camera view sent to layout, turn layers on/off in the view before it is sent to layout.

Creating a special layer set for printing may be useful if you are not printing from layout. See "Layer Sets".

Show Line Weights

Select File> Print> Show Line Weights for an on-screen representation of line weights and line styles. Turning Show Line Weights on or off does not affect the final printed output.

When Show Line Weights is turned on, you can Zoom In

to see the location of lines and dashed lines as they will appear on the printed page.

When Show Line Weights

is off, dashed lines look the same, regardless of the zoom factor.

Show Line Weights

can also be turned on or off in the Preferences dialog. See "Appearance Panel".

Print Preview

Select File> Print> Print Preview for an on-screen representation of how the current view will appear when printed. Objects such as camera symbols that do not print do not display in Print Preview. Text and dimension objects appear on-screen as they will on the printed page.

When Print Preview

is on, the toggle buttons Show Sheet

and Show Line Weights

are overridden.

Show Sheet

Select File> Print> Show Sheet to show the drawing sheet on screen. The drawing sheet size is specified in the Page Setup dialog. See "Page Setup Dialog".

Any portion of your plan that cannot fit on the drawing sheet at the current scale displays outside the sheet.

A blue border represents the printable area, which varies depending on which printer is currently selected. This border may not display on all edges of the drawing sheet. See "Print Drivers".

When selected at its border the sheet has edit handles, allowing it to be resized, relocated, and rotated. See "Editing Objects".

If the sheet size is changed, the drawing sheet dimensions update in the Page Setup dialog. See "Page Setup Dialog".

Dimension lines locate the borders of the sheet. These dimensions can be used to relocate other objects in relation to the sheet. See "Moving Objects Using Dimensions".

Note: Specifying a standard sheet size in the Page Setup dialog is preferable to editing the sheet size on-screen.

Center Sheet

Select File> Print> Center Sheet to center the drawing sheet on the drawing. This moves the sheet relative to the drawing but does not affect the coordinates of objects in the drawing. The location of the drawing sheet is independent for each floor of the model.