Re: How to set up to create a diagram to print on one sheet?

[Andrey Repin <anrdaemon freemail ru>]

Greetings, Chris Green!

> >    Chris,
> >    The Dia paradigm is a little different.  You draw up what ever you like
> >    then you size the page however you want around it.  

> That's all very well, but see below about scaling.


> >    My drill is like this:
> >    You may need to make the page break lines a contrasting color to your
> >    background (in the Preferences/View Defaults/Page Breaks menu).
> >     preferences persist from session to session so mine are always how I like
> >    them.  Background color is under Diagram Defaults, and grid line color is
> >    under Grid Lines.
> Er, but this rather conflicts with the first sentence doesn't it?
> Seeing the page breaks means that you *are* creating a diagram on a
> page, or at least with an awareness of the page breaks.

Only if you decide to do so. Page breaks are there for reference, not for
enforcement.
What if you do not intend to print the diagram at all? Wouldn't having
enforced page breaks impede your ability to draw what you need?

> >    I set the Page Set Up to Letter, Landscape, all margins 0.5in top, bottom,
> >    left & right,. and a Scale of around 35% (depending on the monitor I am
> >    using).  This gives me a page about the size and shape of my screen.

> OK, this makes reasonable sense.  I've never understood why default
> margins (on every program I have ever come across) are always so huge. 

Because default margins are set according to polygraphic standards.
They aren't looking that huge, when you read the book, right?

> >    Whatever I draw inside those lines will print on one page.

> OK, but as noted below, the symbol libraries are then pretty useless
> as the symbols are way too big.

You can scale each shape to fit your needs.
There's very little amount of shapes that can not be scaled, if they are still
there at all after these years.

> >    Another approach is to turn off the page breaks by giving then the same
> >    color as you background, and just draw whatever you like, and when
> >    completed set the page breaks to contrats again, pick paper size and scale
> >    so it all fits - all after the fact.

> All OK, except that the symbols I want to use don't scale sensibly,
> try some of the diode symbols, when you scale them they just become
> blobs.

Patches thoughtfully considered...

> What I have done previously is to do what you say and then import the
> diagram into a web page and scale it there (after conversion to Jpeg
> or whatever), that works fine but I really wanted to create 'pages' of
> diagrams this time.


> >    Some notes on margins that a lot of people assume differently.
> >    What is displayed on screen is the printed area of the diagram.  If you
> >    have one inch margins set all around, then the printed page will have a
> >    1in margin around.  For example an 8.5 x 11 letter page would have a
> >    printed area of 6.5 x 9. Set margins to 0.5in and the printed area will
> >    expand out to 7.5 x 10.

> Which is not very useful if trying to print multi-page diagrams and
> stick them together!  :-)

That really depends, and not in the last turn - on the capabilities of your
printer. Some just can not produce pages without margins.


--
WBR,
Andrey Repin (anrdaemon freemail ru) 22.03.2014, <20:29>

Sorry for my terrible english...