1.

Title of the Module

Chapter 12: Page Setups/Plotting, Printing a drawing at a specific scale

2. Introduction
Through a combination of Online lecture, Video tutorials, hands-on exercises, and
drawing problems, this course introduces the student to computer-aided
design/drafting with AutoCAD. The AutoCAD topics covered in this course include Page
Setups/Plotting, Printing a drawing at a specific scale

3. Learning Outcome
LO1. Page Setups/Plotting
LO2. Printing a drawing at a specific scale

4. Learning Content

Page Setups.

What if you need to plot the same drawing a number of times using different settings?

For example

• One full size plot

• one reduced to A3
• one PDF

The answer is ‘Page Setups’

Page Setups

Page set ups are a method of saving your standard plot settings so that you can use
them over and over again.

To use them, you need to fire up the Page Setup manager:

Button

Ribbon: Output tab > Plot panel > Page Setup Manager

Menu: Application menu > Print > Page Setup

Or Type ‘PAGESETUP’ at the command line

You can also Right-click the Model tab or a layout tab and click Page Setup Manager.

The Page Set Up Manager

The page set up manager gives us access to all the page set ups that have been saved
in the current drawing.
Note: Model space Page setups are separate to Layout space Page setups. There will
be different page set ups offered to you depending on which space you are in when you
are in when you invoke the ‘PAGESETUP’ Command.

1. Current Layout – Which Layout is current. In this case the default ‘Model‘ or
‘Layout1’. Unfortunately there is no way of changing which Layout you are in once
you’ve started up the Page Setup manager – so make sure you have this right
before you start.
2. Help – Trust me, try clicking it… don’t be shy!
3. Current Page Setup – Currently ‘<None>‘ because we haven’t created any yet.
Available page set ups will be shown in the window below.
4. Action Buttons – These Buttons allow you to create New page setups, modify the
old ones or Import page setups from another file.
 5. Information Panel – This panel shows you the details of the page setup you just
chose in the window above.
6. This little check box forces the Page setup manager to start every time you
create a new Layout… (You don’t want this:->)

Click Close when you’ve finished with the Page Setup manager, or Help if this post
makes no sense at all.

Creating a New Page setup

Clicking the ‘New’ Button takes us to this window. You can chose a name for your page
setup, and you can chose which previous page set up you want to base your new Page
Setup on.

Clicking ‘OK’ take us to a very familiar looking dialog box…

The Page Setup dialog is very similar to the plot dialog.

In the picture above I have set up to plot an A0 sized Monochrome PDF. Note the
‘Display Plot styles’ Check box. If you have this clicked you will see a real time ‘Plot
Preview’ showing how this particular pen table will look when you plot. I like this setting
– others don’t, but now you know where it is. You won’t find it anywhere else.

On hitting ‘OK’ we are returned back to the Page Setup Manager and we can see our
new page setup in the list box. The final step is to click the ‘Set Current’ Button to apply
these changes to our Layout.

When you hit the ‘Close’ button you will see that the changes have been applied to the
layout.

An Alternative Method
You don’t have to use the Page Setup Manager to create Page setups. This time we will
create a new Page setup using the ‘Plot’ Dialog.

Fire up the ‘Plot’ command. You will notice that we have a new option.The ‘A0 PDF’
Page setup we created earlier is now in the drop down list under ‘Name’.

We can create a new page set up right from this dialogue.

In the picture above I have changed the Paper size to A1 ( The rest of the plot settings
remain the same). The next step is to click the ‘Add…’ Button.

We are taken to the ‘Add Page Setup’ dialog, where we can name our new Page Setup.
I’m calling this one ‘A1 PDF’.
On Clicking ‘OK’ the new page set up is completed. Our new page set up is shown in the
drop down and we can now quickly and easily ‘Toggle’ from one page set up to the
other.

Creating page setups for your standard plot configurations can save you bags of time,
every time you plot.

The obvious place to save your standard page set ups is in your template file, but Page
Setups can also be imported and exported from one drawing to another.

Page setups can be used in conjunction with the ‘PUBLISH’ command and Sheet sets
for some really powerful batch plotting. More next time…
Printing a drawing at a specific scale
AutoCAD typically deals in millimetres, but Ordnance Survey data available in Digimap is
provided in metres. The instructions below explain how to re-scale a drawing from
metres to millimetres.

Set the correct map units

1. Open the DWG file downloaded from Digimap in AutoCAD.

2. Type 'units' in to the command bar and press enter, the Drawing Units window
appears:

3. Using the dropdown in the 'Insertion Scale' section select 'Meters' if not currently
set.
4. Press the OK button to close the window.

Change the model file from metres to millimetres

AutoCAD now knows that each unit in the map is 1 metre in the model. However,
printing in AutoCAD is based on ISO paper sizes using millimetres so in order to print at
a specific scale you need to convert the model from metres to millimetres.
 1. Press Ctrl + A on your keyboard to select all elements in the drawing.
2. Type 'scale' in to the command bar and press enter.
3. AutoCAD will ask 'SCALE Specify base point:', type '0,0' (without the quotes) and
press enter.
4. AutoCAD will ask 'SCALE Specify scale factor or [Copy Reference]', type '1000'
(without the quotes) and press enter. You may need to press the zoom extents

button to view the data.

This will have changed the drawing from metres to millimetres.

Creating a print file at a specified scale

1. In the main AutoCAD map window select the 'Layout1' tab at the bottom left.

2. On the layout page, delete the existing Viewport to give you a blank page. Do this
by clicking once on the black box that highlights the extents of the Viewport (it
will change to blue to indicate that it is selected), then press delete.

3. This will leave you with a blank page.

4. Change the paper size to the one you want to print. Do this by right clicking on
the 'Layout1' tab and select 'Page Setup Manager' from the popup menu.
5. In the Page Setup Manager window select *Layout1* and then 'Modify'.
6. Select the Printer and Paper Size, and check that the 'Plot scale' units are set to
1:1:

7. Select 'OK' and then 'Close' on the Page Setup Manager window if it is still open.
8. Your sheet will now be set to whatever size you chose on the dialog above (we
used A3).
9. Select the 'Layout' tab at the top of the command ribbon:
10. In the 'Layout Viewports' section select 'Rectangular' to create a new viewport:

11. To add a new Viewport to your page click once on the page in the top left hand
corner inside the dotted line (the dotted line indicates the print margin of your
selected printer), move your mouse to the bottom right hand corner of the page
and click again.
12. You should now have a full page Viewport with the map displayed:

13. Select the Viewport by clicking once on its border so that it glows blue.
14. The scale of the currently selected Viewport is displayed in a drop down in the
bottom right corner:

15. Click on the dropdown arrow to expand the list of scales and select 'Custom...'
from the list:

16. The currently available drawing scales are displayed:

17. Select 'Add...' to add a new scale, and complete as required. 'Paper units' are the
units on the finished print out, 'Drawing units' are the units within the AutoCAD
model. So to add a custom scale to print at 1:10,000 complete as shown below:

18. Once completed, click 'OK' to close the window, and again to close the 'Edit
Drawing Scales' window.
19. Select the Viewport again so that it is highlighted in blue.
20. The current drawing scale will be displayed in the scale selection drop down:
21. Your new custom scale will be listed, select this and your drawing will now fill the
Viewport at the selected scale:

22. You can now print your map at the specified scale.
References:

Cheryl R. Shrock, Steve Heather 2018 - Beginning AutoCAD® 2019 Exercise Workbook
George Omura and Brian C BentonMastering, "AutoCAD® 2018 and AutoCAD LT® 2018",
© 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana
George Omura, Brian C. Benton 2017 - Mastering AutoCAD 2018 and AutoCAD LT 2018
Zico Pratama Putra, Ali Akbar 2019 - AutoCAD 2019 From Zero to Hero
AutoCAD and its Applications-Basic/Shumaker & Madsen 27th Edition for Release 2020
Tutorial Guide to AutoCAD 2018
An Introduction to AutoCAD for Beginners
https://thesourcecad.com/autocad-tutorials/
http://www.cadinternational.com/
https://knowledge.autodesk.com/
https://www.educba.com/introduction-to-autocad/?source=leftnav
https://myCADsite.com/
https://www.javatpoint.com/arc-in-autocad/
http://www.cadtraininginstitute.com/essential-modify-panel-commands-in-autocad/