Using Drafting Sheets

You may experience problems with a particular drafting sheet not fitting onto the appropriate paper size, such as your A4 drafting sheet not fitting onto an A4 page. This is because no plotter or printer will print to the very edge of the page, but the drafting sheets have data extending to the very edge of the external box (which represents the edge of the paper).

You can avoid data falling in the non-printable area by:

• Using the margin offset option when creating the external box.
• Placing all of the plot elements, such as internal boxes, fields, north points, and scale bars inside the external box at an appropriate distance.
• Using the Two Point option when creating the external box to make it the same dimensions as the printable area.
• Specifying a larger paper size than the drafting sheet in the Plot Utility.

Note:   This is only for plotters. Your plotter will then produce a plot, such that the external box will be the correct paper size. As the majority of plotters have paper-saving mechanisms, the plotter will only use the amount of paper required to render the plot. That is, the drafting sheet size (such as A4) plus small margins either side.

You can use your plotter in this manner to plot multiple plots using the Batch Print or Print All options, which will be nested to save paper, and then use the external box as a cutting guide to produce the correctly sized plots. If you try to plot to the same paper size as the drafting sheet, then the plotter margins will interfere and sections of your plot will be ignored.