Printing smaller sets for bids

[canadadesigns]

You're right Allen, that's a good idea. I can use some of the extra page size for a custom title block for that size of page layout. I will stick to the 8.5"x11" for emailing printable prelim's & emails though(pdf), as I don't want to make it any more complicated than I have to, as most of my clients don't have legal size paper laying around.

Thanks,

Richard

[Allen42acj]

It is handy to have though for letters that are just a bit to long for 1 page but not worth using a whole sheet for 1 or 2 lines..

[PhoenixConstruction]

Allen;

Don't know if you already have enough answers, but here's my way of doing it. I have my plans set up to print at 36x24 (Arch D) size. When I want a letter size set, I just print to pdf and set up the pdf paper size as Arch D, and be sure to print in Landscape mode. It will go to the pdf print, and then when I want to print, I just print to 8 1/2 x 11. This way, I dont have to mess with any of my settings in Chief. Any of the plans that I have posted on Chief Portal, are done this way, and they can be printed any size.

[lbuttery]

George:

I do this also, probably got the method from you.

For clarification it should be pointed out that the smaller prints won't be to scale.

Lew

[Allen42acj]

Thanks George
I had printed to Tabloid size pdf.And the thought I was printing to to letter size,maybe I selected Legal because it was taking 2 pages..
Will try it again and only select 1 page instead of 2 copies of the whole thing..
Know it was user error,just not sure what was doing wrong to fix it and do it right..


If my dog wants to go out and then comes in one more time,I'll be a cat person..

[Allen42acj]

Follow up on this.
User error
My small printer had the paper size set up wrong.Must have been me..
Hope this helps someone else..

[Doug Park]

I think many of the ways of doing this were hit on. There are indeed many options.

When printing to scale there are quite a few considerations. Paper size, whether the scale needs to be a "normal" scale, does the print out need to accurately display the scale etc.

If you want to create a set of prints that can be easily scaled then the first thing to do is choose a paper size that will scale well. Arch and ANSI sizes use 2 different aspect ratios depending on the paper size. So E, C, and A scale nicely as well as D and B. ISO sizes are designed so the aspect ratio is the same for all sizes which means you can fit your drawing to any ISO paper size in the same series without having left over space.

ANSI A is 8 1/2 x 11 so starting with E or C gives you a nice size when you need to scale down for most US printers. B is tabloid size so it also scales down from D nicely on many US printers.

The second thing to do is decide whether showing the scale is correct or not. If it is then you will need to print directly from Chief to get the %scale macro to show up correctly on the printout.

Once you have this setup there are several print options. If you want to scale down from say C to A or D to B in ARCH or ANSI sizes then you can choose 1/2 scale in check plot dialog. If you don't care to produce a good scale, then you can choose fit to paper and print to any paper size. In this case the output will be fit to the paper, ignoring printing boundaries, and centered on the paper.

[Allen42acj]

Hi Doug
It comes down to my user error though.The paper size was set longer than letter in my printer.It was printing 2 sheets for each page.
No matter how much good advise I got,it would not have helped fix that.

It is as easy as described..