• AutoCAD

Reposition a drawing for printing

Adjust the plot offset to reposition a drawing on the sheet before printing, and save these changes to the page setup.


Tutorial resources

These downloadable resources will be used to complete this tutorial:


00:04

There may be times when you need to reposition the drawing slightly

00:07

on the sheet before you actually send it to the printer.

00:10

Perhaps when you placed the title block on the sheet,

00:13

you did not get it positioned properly within the printable area.

00:18

You can do this by adjusting the plot offset

00:22

in the plot offset group box,

00:24

change the Y value to negative 0.25 to shift

00:30

the output one quarter inch down on the sheet.

00:34

Then click preview again.

00:37

You can see that the border drawing has been shifted down in relation to the paper,

00:43

close the print preview window.

00:47

If you make this or any other change,

00:49

you can save the changes to the page set up so

00:52

that you do not need to make the same adjustments.

00:55

The next time you print this sheet

00:57

to do this click apply to layout.

01:01

This button becomes available anytime you change any setting in the plot dialogue.

01:08

Finally,

01:10

when you are ready to print, click, OK.

01:14

Remember that for the purpose of this exercise,

01:17

the layout is configured to output to a PDF file.

01:20

So when you click, OK, AUTOCAD prompts you for a file name.

01:25

If you are printing to an actual printer or plotter,

01:29

you probably will not see this.

01:31

Instead, at this point, your drawing would begin printing.

Video transcript

00:04

There may be times when you need to reposition the drawing slightly

00:07

on the sheet before you actually send it to the printer.

00:10

Perhaps when you placed the title block on the sheet,

00:13

you did not get it positioned properly within the printable area.

00:18

You can do this by adjusting the plot offset

00:22

in the plot offset group box,

00:24

change the Y value to negative 0.25 to shift

00:30

the output one quarter inch down on the sheet.

00:34

Then click preview again.

00:37

You can see that the border drawing has been shifted down in relation to the paper,

00:43

close the print preview window.

00:47

If you make this or any other change,

00:49

you can save the changes to the page set up so

00:52

that you do not need to make the same adjustments.

00:55

The next time you print this sheet

00:57

to do this click apply to layout.

01:01

This button becomes available anytime you change any setting in the plot dialogue.

01:08

Finally,

01:10

when you are ready to print, click, OK.

01:14

Remember that for the purpose of this exercise,

01:17

the layout is configured to output to a PDF file.

01:20

So when you click, OK, AUTOCAD prompts you for a file name.

01:25

If you are printing to an actual printer or plotter,

01:29

you probably will not see this.

01:31

Instead, at this point, your drawing would begin printing.

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