Re: Problem with not printing to scale

[Lars Clausen <lars raeder dk>]

On Fri, 2008-02-08 at 15:03 -0800, John King III wrote:
> Hi, i'm trying to print the attached dia file to scale. I set the
> graph so that x and y are 0.254 cm which equals 0.1 inch. So if I
> print this then the line going across 10 units (may have to adjust
> your grid spacing to see this since I don't think it saves the grid
> spacing) it should be 1 inch long, right? It's actually measuring
> about 1 1/16" or 2.75 cm (should be 2.54). It's a little better if I
> print to another printer, but still off. It's even better but still
> off if I print to PDFCreator then to my printer making sure to not
> scale to margins. Is this a margin issue? How can I print to scale?

I tried printing your diagram directly (on a Linux box) with the default
setting (A4 paper).  The line labelled "1 inch" came out to exactly one
inch.  As long as you don't use the scaling operators, my experience has
been that it's very accurate.  No experience on Windows, though.

> Thanks in advance for any help.
>  
> Also, I couldn't really find anywhere to post suggestions, so I will
> here.
>      1. Add length/dimension control. Just make it so you can manually
>         type the distance a line or rectangle is into its properties.

It's easy enough to make the dimensions visible as properties, but
there's not yet the needed infrastructure to make them update properly
when the object moves/resizes in the diagram.

>      1. I noticed the hex graph, very nice, but how about an
>         isometric/triangle graph. Then you could simulate 3D on a 2D
>         drafting program. I also attached a pdf with this graph paper
>         to see what i'm talking about.

Not a bad idea.  Making new grids is not all that trivial, but the hex
grid code should be reusable to a large degree.

>      1. Why can't I rotate stuff/components? This seems like the first
>         thing that would be put in?

Alas, it wasn't, and it's tough to retrofit.  Occasionally, I consider
the idea of having SVG being the internal representation in Dia, but
that'd take a lot of work.

-Lars