Plot to PDF

What you will make

A PDF of a sheet at full size, then a quick PDF of the model at 1:100, and a printout.

The PDF is made inside your browser; nothing is uploaded. It is a vector PDF: lines stay sharp at any zoom, and text can be searched.

Plot a sheet

1. Click the sheet's tab under the drawing.
2. Press ⌘PCtrl+P, click Plot, or type PLOT and press ReturnEnter.

The Plot to PDF dialog opens. It says which sheet it plots and on what paper, "at full size … as you see it". The preview on the right shows the sheet.

1. In Ink, choose Black (monochrome) for black lines, or Drawing colours to keep the colors.
2. In Line weight, choose a pen width from 0.13 mm to 0.70 mm. Every line in the PDF has this width.
3. Click Download PDF.

The browser downloads a PDF named after the drawing and the sheet, for example Drawing1-A-101 Plan.pdf. The history reports its size in bytes and its paper size in millimeters.

A sheet always plots at 1:1 on its own paper. To change the paper, change it on the sheet itself (see Set up a sheet). Layers set not to plot are left out, and so are viewport frames.

Plot the model

1. Click the Model tab.
2. Press ⌘PCtrl+P.

The dialog says it plots the model onto a sheet of paper, and shows more settings:

1. In Area, choose what to plot:
   • Everything (extents): the whole drawing.
   • What is on screen: the area you see in the drawing now.
   • A window…: then click Pick, click two corners on the drawing, and the dialog comes back.
2. In Paper, choose a size: ISO A4 to A0, Letter, Legal, Tabloid and ANSI C and D, or ARCH C, D and E.
3. In Orientation, choose Landscape or Portrait.
4. In Scale, choose Fit to paper or a scale such as 1:100.

Under the settings, a line reports the scale and how big the area comes out on the paper. If it is bigger than the paper, it says so: the edges are cut off. Choose a smaller scale, a bigger paper, or Fit to paper.

1. Click Download PDF.

A model plot leaves a 5 mm margin round the edge, because most printers cannot print to the edge. Fit to paper gives an odd scale (the history and the info line say "(fitted)"); choose a standard scale when the drawing must measure true.

Print

1. In the dialog, click Open to print.
2. The PDF opens in a new browser tab.
3. Print from that tab with the browser's print command (⌘PCtrl+P there).

In the printer settings, choose "Actual size" or 100% (not "Fit") to keep the scale.

If your browser blocks the new tab, CadCraft downloads the PDF instead and says so in the history. Allow pop-ups for the site to open it in a tab next time.

Settings that are remembered

The dialog remembers your last paper, orientation, scale, ink and line weight in this browser. A picked window is kept until you reload the page; after that the dialog starts at Everything (extents).

Common mistakes

• The PDF is blank or the buttons are grey. There is nothing to plot (an empty model), or A window… is chosen and no window is picked yet ("Pick the window to plot.").
• Text shows "?" in the PDF. The PDF uses the built-in Helvetica font, which only has Western European characters. The history counts how many characters were replaced.
• All lines are the same thickness. That is how it works today: one pen width per plot. Line weights per layer are not built yet.
• Construction lines printed. Set their layer not to plot: click its printer button in the Layers panel.
• The printout is the wrong size. The printer scaled it. Print at actual size.
• ⌘PCtrl+P opened the browser's print dialog. The cursor was in a box in the right panel, or another dialog was open. Press ReturnEnter or EscEsc to leave the box, then try again, or click Plot.
• ⌘PCtrl+P did nothing. A command is running. Press EscEsc first.