Solution within QCad:
1. Hmm... I just opened a new document .dxf.
2. Setup: Nothing special.
3. -> Print preview.
4. Set scale to 1:1.
5. Select an aera (in this case A4) where you want to print out.
6. Print.
My layout:
Code: Select all
¦-------------
¦ ¦ ¦
¦ E ¦ F ¦
¦ ¦ ¦
¦-------------
¦ ¦ ¦
¦ C ¦ D ¦
¦ ¦ ¦
¦-------------
¦ ¦ ¦
¦ A ¦ B ¦
¦ ¦ ¦
0-------------
^
¦
+--- Zero, Zero is here
A, B, C, D, E and F are about A4 sizes, a "helper grid" for printout on A4. I did it here just as 40 x 30 mm squares border on each other.
Then I was able to place the "preview A4 paper" under one of the A, B, C, D, E or F. Then just print.
NOTE: Make sure, you select to correct printer settings. In this case: A4-porait, scale 1:1, 100%.
NOTE-2: Scale is always 1:1 in preview, and in your specific printer settings.
NOTE-3: Maybe set your correct printer settings first, before you start up and use the printer in your application (in this case QCad Professional). In Windows, it is normal, that you setup your printer first, like in Word, then Word will setup the layout according to this settings.
Solution with Postscript Tool such as "Poster":
1. Print your document to a Postscript (PS) file.
2. Use this .ps file to do anything. Printing, Scaling, etc.
3. Use a tool like "Poster" for print out posters. (Within Linux, it should be no problem). Maybe also available with "Cygwin" on Windows.
NOTE: Start reading here about the "poster" tool.
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/5682/poster.html
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Poster is a small utility for making a poster -- a large printed image -- from an EPS file or a one-page PS document.
If you're lucky enough to have access to a large-media printer/plotter, you can print it on that.
Otherwise, Poster can print it out on your regular printer, on lots of sheets of paper which you glue together to make the poster.
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NOTE: You can also create PDF files by using "ps2pdf" or similar programs.
Some instructions from an other QCad user:
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My best advise is to print to a postscript file in A4 format and then use some Postscript utility (poster, pstops, ...) to blow the PS up to the desired size.
If your drawing fits on an available papersize, set that papersize in (drawing prefs. Otherwise set to A4. (I have not tried custom sizes)
Fit the drawing to the page.
Note the scale factor if not one. Compute 1/scalefactor in your head
(well, ok, let's be user friendly and say you can use a calculator).
In print preview, print to pdf. (Note that printing to postscript results in a pdf file! This doesn't happen in Preview or other mac apps so I don't know what's going on there.)
From a shell prompt, convert the pdf to eps (NOT PS.) I modded pdf2ps into pdf2eps; I'll put that code at the end of this post.
sh ./pdf2eps infile.pdf
Now, at last, run poster on it:
poster -v -mletter -s<1/scalefactor> -w10% infile.eps > outfile.ps
the 10% is to deal with unprintable borders on my printer, you may have to adjust to suit. If you are using different sizes in your printer, set the -m option to suit. Note that the 1/scalefactor scales the drawing to the bounding box so the -m option is independent of the paper you saved to in qcad.
One more thing: preview won't open any of the postscript files. However, gs and gv (ghostscript and ghostview) both will. I use gv to print. gv requires that you're using X11, but that goes without saying.
(You can also print with "lpr outfile.ps", hopefully.)
I upgraded to GPL Ghostscript 8.56 (2007-03-14)
from
http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/doc/GPL/gpl856.htm
(dont forget the fonts directory; it goes in
/usr/local/share/ghostscript/fonts)
here is a link to poster:
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/5682/poster.html
and got gv from fink commander, along with psutils
I hope that's as useful as it was painful!
Here's my hacked version of ps2eps; just paste it into a file named
ps2eps along with your drawings. Set permissions etc if you know how to do that. Otherwise, run as above.
Code:
Code: Select all
#!/bin/sh
# modified from pdf2ps
# Convert PDF to encapsulated PostScript.
# This definition is changed on install to match the
# executable name set in the makefile
GS_EXECUTABLE=gs
OPTIONS=""
while true
do
case "$1" in
-?*) OPTIONS="$OPTIONS $1" ;;
*) break ;;
esac
shift
done
if [ $# -eq 2 ]
then
outfile=$2
elif [ $# -eq 1 ]
then
outfile=`basename "$1" \.pdf`.eps
else
echo "Usage: `basename $0` [-dASCII85EncodePages=false] [-dLanguageLevel=1|2|3] input.pdf [output.eps]" 1>&2
exit 1
fi
# Doing an initial 'save' helps keep fonts from being flushed between pages.
# We have to include the options twice because -I only takes effect if it
# appears before other options.
exec $GS_EXECUTABLE $OPTIONS -q -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -dSAFER -sDEVICE=epswrite "-sOutputFile=$outfile" $OPTIONS -c save pop -f "$1"
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morticiaskeeper wrote:Care to point me in the right direction then?
I've played about in print preview and moved the paper to print the area I wanted, but the scale was out. I set it to 1:1, but that isn't what was printed.
Paul