Title block extents: what are others doing?

[ron.sanpedro]

I am wondering what others are doing

The OOTB title blocks use a visible line for the paper edge, and the plotter then takes that edge as the start point, moves it in by the physical device margins, and skews the image on the page. If you change that line to <INVISIBLE> it seems to work better at print, but it is really hard to work with sheets, especially presentation sheets that only have text at the bottom. You just have no sense of layout space. One thought I had was to create a subcategory of Layout lines that are really light gray and set their visibility with a type parameter that defaults to visible. When you place your title blocks you see the layout line, but when printing it is minimal. Then when you are ready for final print you change the type parameter, and all titleblocks change. I am also doing some stuff with stamps coming on when a Ready to Submit parameter is set, and perhaps the layout lines would go off then also.
And I am also looking into some saved Printer Settings which adjust for the printer.

But before all that, I hope to hear what others are doing.

Thanks,
Gordon

[patricks]

We have never had a problem with the lines that define the edge of the paper. If you set your print settings to Center and Scale 100%, then the paper edge lines should be outside the print margins and not print anyway, and the titleblock should be located exactly where it should be.

[kpaxton]

Gordon,
I agree with Patrick - I and many others have not had this sort of problem with printers at all. Although you can do as you suggest, I think you might be overthinking the problem and the solution. Others have suggested to use invisible lines for layouts - when you place your view on the sheet (make sure it's selected) then move your mouse over the titleblock to highlight it. The invisible lines will highlight and you can still move the View with the arrow keys for fine placement. Try Patricks suggestion for printing and everything should work fine.

I'd also like to ask a couple of things- Are you making a file, then sending it to the printer or are you printing directly to the device? Is this for Temp/progress prints or for final, full size sheet prints? Also, in your whole description, you never once mentioned the printer that you're having difficulty with - that might help a little..

[ron.sanpedro]

We have never had a problem with the lines that define the edge of the paper. If you set your print settings to Center and Scale 100%, then the paper edge lines should be outside the print margins and not print anyway, and the titleblock should be located exactly where it should be.

Yeah, I just discovered that 2008 seems to not be having the same issue. But we did see it with 9.1. Lots of skewed prints. Kind of sucks that Fit to Page is useless, the image is way smaller than required. And unlike Acad, it doesn't tell you what the fit to page scale factor is, so manually setting a scale factor is a calculator and guessing game. Ick!
And boy would it be nice to have an option to justify the print to the right, rather than just center. Then a 30X42 Reduced to 11X17 would still have a correct left edge binding strip.
Ah, the things we complain about. ;)

Gordon

[Wes Macaulay]

Gordon, I've had these problems before and I posted a thread on this:
http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=5048

[patricks]

Our title block families have lines defining the edge of the sheet, drawn as the Title Block line style in the family editor. I don't know but I'm guessing maybe Revit doesn't print these by default? Or maybe it's just the fact that we set the print settings to Center and Scale 100%, but our sheets always come out exactly 24x36 on a 36" roll and 30x42 on a 30" roll.

*edit* actually yes I'm pretty sure that Revit doesn't print the Title Block line style, because we used to print 30x42 sheets on 36" paper and trim it down, and the line at the edge of the 30" dimension never did print.

[tc3dcad60731]

ok I admit that I did not read all of these bu the main thing that you need to look out for is the limits of the printer itself. By this I mean that the OOTB I believe is just inside of 24x36 but mine had to be just inside of 22x34 likewise my 11x17 is actually 9x15.