Technical Issue Creating roll size drawing layouts

[hoogie007]

Hello all
I've been using DC since 2006.  I design free flight model aircraft using it, which I market through my website CB Model Designs.
Most of my designs have been able to fit within the pre-defined sheet drawing format sizes available in DC as defaults.  However, larger model designs use roll size drawing formats on the order of 36 x 72 and longer.  I know I can create my own formats using DC, but there is no way to get them to print in one piece without the tiling functionality kicking in on the printer defaults.  What I really need to do is create the roll size drawing in DC and convert it to full size PDF format, which is again mission impossible with all the default sheet size settings you find in 3rd party PDF creators.  So, I'm stuck with making drawings that have to be split into several pieces, and that is just an antiquated way to deal with this issue.  I use my local copy house to run PDF drawings of my plan sets used in the kits I sell, so the PDF functionality is important.

Anyone dealt with this issue here?  I didn't get any returns for the subject of "roll size drawing formats" in a search.  Is there a chance the DC development team would ever consider having the ability to make custom size drawings and saving in PDF format?  Without it, you are limited to E sheet drawing size as the largest format, which limits the value of DC in my opinion.

CB

[AlwMVMO]

Have you tried going into your Printer Preferences setup under the Control Panel and creating a Custom paper size?

Also DeltaCad User's Group is an independent group of users that isn't affiliated with Midnight Software Inc., the developer of DeltaCad.
You will have to contact them directly at [ Midnight Software, Inc ] with software changes and bugs.

[hoogie007]

I looked at the settings for the printer on my system.  There is a user defined option but it limits to 8.5 x 44 which is probably good for printing a small banner.  My main concern is getting to a PDF converter that allows roll size layouts.  It would be awesome if DC would let you file a roll size layout as a PDF.  My other option is to fork out $$$ for a plotter that I could run custom roll size plots on.

Thanks for the feedback.

[AlwMVMO]

If your printer is 36 inches wide, I don't know why it limits you to only 8.5.
What is the make and model of your printer?
You may have to upgrade your printer driver.

Have you tried PDF995? 
Their printer device setting has several 36 inch wide settings from 60 to 108 inches.

When in DC you just print to the PDF995 device and it creates a PDF file.

[hoogie007]

(06-08-2020, 08:30 PM)AlwMVMO Wrote: If your printer is 36 inches wide, I don't know why it limits you to only 8.5.
What is the make and model of your printer?
You may have to upgrade your printer driver.

Have you tried PDF995? 
Their printer device setting has several 36 inch wide settings from 60 to 108 inches.

When in DC you just print to the PDF995 device and it creates a PDF file.

Sorry-I just have a small Epson printer, not a 36" roll plotter.  I use my local copy shop that has a large format plotter to run my drawing layouts, and need PDF format for them to open the files and plot.

I will check out the PDF995 app.  I currently use the freeware PDF24 to create the files I need, but it limits the biggest layout to Arch E sheet which is something like 44" long I believe.  I use ANSI D & E size for the most part.

Thanks for the lead on the alternate PDF source. 

[hoogie007]

Just downloaded PDF995 and gave it a try.  It works as I had hoped-thank you so much for enlightening me about this!

[BDD]

I use an H-P DesignJet T120 printer, which can handle 24" wide roll paper.  I do D-size drawings all the time, which are 24 x 36.  The trick is to design a custom sheet size in Windows.  I've not only done this to print D-size, but to print banners that are six or more feet in length.  It's not hard.

[hoogie007]

Well, time has gone by and things slowly happen.  I have no problem getting PDF995 to create a file that is set to one of the printer defaults of 36 x 60.  All fine and good, but when plotted it is not producing the drawing to scale.  I was at the print shop and were examining the pdf file itself using his app. I had put a scale marker 6 inches long on the DC drawing and used it to verify the plot was close to scale on the hard copy.  We found the pdf element for the scale was 5.8 inches, which was what it looked like on the hard copy, so there is something happening when the pdf is generated.
I suspect the freeware version of the 995 app may have deliberate scale distortion built in, and perhaps that improves if you buy one of their "keys" to license your use.  I've tried to contact them about this, but no reply yet.  In the meantime, be aware of this problem if you need to have accurate geometry on your plot using a file generated from PDF995.  

Back to fumbling around for a good solution to make roll size drawings for DC files  

[AlwMVMO]

I'm assuming you have a border on your drawings. Try scaling down your border .96 percent ( 5.8 / 6.0 ) and see what that does. Don't scale down the drawing inside the border.

[hoogie007]

(02-03-2021, 12:05 AM)AlwMVMO Wrote: I'm assuming you have a border on your drawings. Try scaling down your border .96 percent ( 5.8 / 6.0 ) and see what that does. Don't scale down the drawing inside the border.

I did test the scaling effect by removing the border and moving all elements within a margin of .75 to 1 inch to see what this did.
With the border, the pdf scale bar I had as 6 inches on the dc drawing came out as 5.8 inches using the pdf ,measure tool.  I removed the border with the ,75 margin, and the scale improved to 5.98 inches on the pdf. I was able to get it to 6.04 inches with a one inch margin.  The best I could see was 5.99 inches which is plenty good for what I'm doing to build directly on the drawing layout.
I had feedback from the PDF995 support team-there is no scale factor applied to the freeware version.  I sent them a a copy of the pdf file with the border, and the one with the .75 margin with no border lines to study.  Their feedback was the cad system is probably causing the errors with scaling.
So, there you are.  If you need an accurate pdf file of a dc drawing, put a scale on it and make sure you test your pdf conversion to meet your expectations.  Sounds like Deltacad has another bug to look at.  Too bad they don't have a native pdf conversion option in the software.