How to Print Part of a Drawing

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How to Print Part of a Drawing

bilyo
I've been working with another cad program for the Windows platform and I'm now trying Librecad because it runs on Linux. The two programs seem to handle model space and paper space differently. So, I have a mindset at the moment that I can't seem to overcome. Please help.
Assume that I have a house floorplan drawn at full scale (1:1) and I want to print part of the plan (lets say one small room) onto an 8 1/2x11 sheet. Please step me through the process (I'm sure this is so simple).
Thanks
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Re: How to Print Part of a Drawing

dxli
It can be done, using an experimental feature (in 2.0.7 release).

several things:

1, set paper size in Edit->Current drawing preferences;
2, in print preview. set scale to 1:1 and check the "Fixed" checkbox in print preview toolbar;
3, you can use command line to set print offset (experimental feature):
 offset can can be specified in paper space or graph space:
command "paperoffset" and "graphoffset" to choose
4, to change printing offset, type a coordinate in command, for example, "1,1" ( without the quotation mark).

This feature needs some improvement. Any help/feedback is welcome.

bilyo wrote
I've been working with another cad program for the Windows platform and I'm now trying Librecad because it runs on Linux. The two programs seem to handle model space and paper space differently. So, I have a mindset at the moment that I can't seem to overcome. Please help.
Assume that I have a house floorplan drawn at full scale (1:1) and I want to print part of the plan (lets say one small room) onto an 8 1/2x11 sheet. Please step me through the process (I'm sure this is so simple).
Thanks
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Re: How to Print Part of a Drawing

bilyo
Thanks. I'll give that a try.
Regarding help/feedback; all I can do is relate to you some of my experience with Turbo Cad, a Windows based Cad System. It makes a rather distinct separation between model space using real world dimensions and paper space using whatever scale you need to fit a printed page. This is done through the creation of a paper port which allows you to select any part of your model space and place into a paper space of any size for printing or saving. If printing part of a drawing in Librecad needs improvement, your programmers might look at Turbo Cad for some ideas.
Thanks for your help
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Re: How to Print Part of a Drawing

rdorsch
Can anybody tell if that still applies for 2.1.3 ?
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Re: How to Print Part of a Drawing

rdorsch
In reply to this post by bilyo
...and is "set scale to 1:1" just an example? If not, if I select 1:1 on my file how do I get to something like 1:500 which is appropriate in my case with just providing an offset?
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Re: How to Print Part of a Drawing

dellus
Just set 1:500 and shift the underlying paper sheet to the desired position with left mouse button pressed.

For V2.2.0 rc, but mostly valid for 2.1.3 also: https://librecad.readthedocs.io/en/latest/guides/completion.html# 
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Re: How to Print Part of a Drawing

rdorsch
Thanks for the quick reply. But it seems my problem is different, it applies only to a specific drawing which does not print at all :-/

I created a bug report:

https://github.com/LibreCAD/LibreCAD/issues/1270

It would be helpful if somebody could check if my dxf prints for him or her.
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Re: How to Print Part of a Drawing

dellus
The pdf is not empty,but the content seems to be far off the page boundary. You can see the contents when opening in inkscape and do "fit drawing to window".
In LibreCAD first set a valid page size like A4.
As it is a site plan (Lageplan) the coordinates are very far off from absolute zero (0,0). This seems to hinder proper printing.
So move the whole drawing near to coordinates 0,0.
Now export to pdf gives a usable result.

testmod3.pdf
onlineconvertfree_20111_moved.dxf



 
 
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Re: How to Print Part of a Drawing

rdorsch
Many thanks for the very accurate analysis and yes I can confirm, works for me as well :-)

I assume this is a librecad issue in the pdf generation and not a pdf viewer issue, would you agree?

To get back to the original question: it seems that the creator tool was able to crop everything in the printout that is outside the square box in layer "Ebene 99". Is there an equivalent function in librecad?

A potential workaround I could imagine: create a custom papersize and then manipulate the pdf by e.g. pdfjam https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/185145/convert-pdf-to-a-different-page-size-us-letter-a4
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Re: How to Print Part of a Drawing

dellus
I agree it is an issue with pdf creation. Have not tested with true paper printing, but I expect it to be the same.
Working with very large geographical surveyor coordinates can also induce problems with professional commercial cad programs. Such large coordinate values demand great calculation efforts and can result in inaccuracies. The recommendation is to move the drawing content near to 0,0 position.

There is no function in LibreCAD to really cut the drawing to a certain frame. You would have to do this manually, which can be a lot of work, especially for cutting colour fills and hatches.

Yes, use a custom paper size, and that's it. I don't see an advantage in the procedure you have provided the link for. But feel free to make your own experiments.

onlineconvertfree_20111_moved_custom.dxf

testmod3_custom.pdf



   
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Re: How to Print Part of a Drawing

dellus
In reply to this post by rdorsch
Or is your intention to place that cropped area onto A4? Ok, then it makes sense. Done in inkscape, just changed paper size, moved to center and resaved. There may be other ways.

testmod3_custom_a4.pdf
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Re: How to Print Part of a Drawing

rdorsch
Yes, that was the intention, excellent, thank you :-)

Do you know by chance if the original coordinates in a plan ("Lageplan") carry any information. Is there a typical reference or is the (0,0) reference arbitrary?
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Re: How to Print Part of a Drawing

dellus
They do carry information about absolute position on earth or in Germany.  Position of 0,0 can differ according to national standards, as far as I know. But I am not an expert in this field.