printing help

[mowermech]

Hello all !!
need help, I have some rc airplane plans in dwg format. When i try to print the file ( i don't have access to a plotter) it only prints whats viewed in the window instead of the whole drawing. Is there a way to print the entire drawing on a regular pc printer. The drawing measures about 3' x 5'. I want to print it out on several sheets of 8.5" x 11" standard pc paper than tape them together so i can start building some planes. I am using autocad 2004.
Thanks in advance for any help
Ives

 

[IFRs]

In the print dialog, you can choose to print "extents" for the whole drawing. If you choose "window" then you can click the button to choose your window where you use the mouse to pick opposite corners. To see the whole drawing, go zoom extents on the command line or View Zoom Extents on the pull-down menu.

 

[steve1]

There are several ways to accomplish this. My first suggestion would be to save the file as a pdf using some large paper size, such as architectural E size. Then print the pdf using page scaling set at "tile larger pages".

 

[mowermech]

Thanks for the help, i made an error in my post. The original drawing fit on a 8.5 x 11 sheet. I zoomed in to the size I wanted and resaved. I tried clicking the extents option and printing. It printed the whole plan on a single sheet. I clicked the 1:1 option but it didn't work. So i guess my question should be how do you enlarge a drawing to a different scale and than print it in the larger dimension.

 

[IFRs]

Zoom extents then plot
The Plot Scale should be "Scale to Fit"
The paper size should be 8 1/2 x 11
The "What to Plot should be "Window"
Before actualy plotting, click the "Window" button in the plot dialog
Select a window on your screen

It helps to make a grid of 8 x 10 1/2 lines on your drawing and snap to the intersections when selecting the window to print.

 

[CADSTUDENT]

I have an alternative suggestion. Instead of printing in model space(MS), why don't you use paperspace(PS)? Paperspace is an ACAD "what you see is what you get" printing option. Select the Layout1 tab at the bottom of your screen. This will take you to the Page Setup dialog box. Select what paper size (letter) and printer then ok.
On the screen, you will see a rectangle and dashed lines on a 8 1/2 x 11 sheet. The rectangle is your floating viewport and dashed lines are your margins. Select the viewport border and expand the viewport to fill out your sheet. Doubleclick inside the viewport and use the Zoom XP command to make a drawing an acceptable size. This is just the very basics of PS. Tip: Before going to PS, create another layer called viewport and set it current before going to PS> When you are finished with PS and ready to print, freeze the viewport layer. This will hide your viewport border.

Hope this helps,

John