Printing large drawings

[airion]

My company is small and just moved to a new location. In our old office their was another company in the same building and I had access to their large plotters. Now I only have the 8.5x11.



I've found some cheap printers out there that do up to legal size paper (B size), but that still won't help me with size C and D prints. If anyone knows of a good source of used printers and plotters, that would be helpful also.



In the mean time, is there an easy way to print out larger drawings using multiple 8.5x11 pieces? I can do it now by printing one half, then panning to the right and printing the other half (on a B size) but this isn't very accurate and would certainly be a big pain on the D size.



Thanks for your help.

 

[lcoates68]

You can plot a large format onto small paper. In the print dialog box click on the configure button. Then click on the model tab and select the segmented option. This will segment your plot and give you reference markers in which to cut/align to build the large format plot.

 

[dr_gallup]

The segmented option does give usable, accurate output but it certainly is a big pain for larger sizes. You have to cut and paste (with scissors and glue) every page. I think there are some places like Kinkos that will do large format plotting for a fee. We once were able to justify a color printer by sending all our color work to Kinkos for a month. They are not cheap! Also check with local places that sell plotters and drafting supplies. They may be willing to do plotting and may be able to keep an eye out for a used plotter. Check eBay, it is amazing what is for sale there.

 

[airion]

I had already tried the segmented option and it did not work for me this time either. It took a B size print, put most of the left half on one piece, the top .5 above that on another, with the far right .5 on one, and the fourth and final piece had the top right corner, about .5 x .5. It probably would give me the entire drawing if the other two pages would have printed.



I think there should be an easy way to print the B size on two pieces of A size paper. Has anyone had any success with the above mentioned method? Does anyone have any other suggestions.

 

[airion]

My previous attempts were using v2001. I just tried it in Wildfire and got the same result.

 

[miked]

Plotting in pro e sucks, I wish we had a preview like autocad.

I have one set up in my 1220 printer but I havent found a way for previewing plots. Is there such a thing?

Mike

 

[dr_gallup]

Actually, I find plotting in Pro/E to be vastly superior to AutoMAD. I don't need a preview because I have a macro that plots correctly every time. I used to have a lisp routine that also plotted correctly in AutoCAD but when they updated the GUI they broke it and I can't find any way to automate it now.



Back to the original subject, segmented plots work correctly for me (R20). You may have to tell it to rotate the plot or some such. You should be able to plot a B size onto 4 sheets of A size paper using the segmented plot. It won't fit on 2 because Pro/E puts extra margins and alignment marks in the segmented plots.