A lot of the plans I’ve found are already in the big sheets and not tiled out to print on a normal office printer and even when I try printing the tiled versions a lot of the time it doesn’t match up perfectly so does anyone know where I could maybe print out the full sized versions?
Help with printing plans
- Thread starter Donovan08
- Start date
Mr Man
Mr SPEED!
I use Adobe Reader (the free version) to tile all of the plans, If you still want full size plans, Staples will print them off.(Although it's a bit pricey)
If you're in the US then Staples or Office Depot will print plans full size. Use their lowest price service - blue print was the least expensive the last time I had some printed. Make sure to leave a measurement legend on the plans so you can check the scale of what they print. Most of the PDF readers will have an option to tile larger pages just make sure that you have 'actual size' checked on not 'fit to margin' or 'fit to page' selected. Mine might still be 1/16" or so off but in foam board measurements that is approaching zero!
Andrew
G'day Mate
Every home printer I've used in the last 20 years has "print preferences" in that section there is settings for "poster" , I can make it smaller, bigger, with cut lines, or without, print preview to see how many pages, landscape or portrait.
I don't hear about many people doing it this way, not sure why, for me it's easy and straightforward.
I know what you mean, my printer doesn't line things up perfectly either.
Perfect is not necessary, just make as close as you can. We are building planes with foamboard after all.
Mr Man
Mr SPEED!
Yep, same here.
GhostFlyer
New member
I printed some full size (22x34 inch) plans at the FedEx store. I wasn't sure how their system would work so I wanted to pull out the specific pages from the all in one PDF. I found a utility PDFSAM that worked great.
Good thing I split out the pages. They had an HP DesignJet XL 3600 MFP with touch screen and attached POS for credit card. All self service. No computer needed. You plug in a usb flash drive and select your file from the touch screen. I didn't see any way to select specific pages; it prints the whole file. There was a form that allowed selecting scale=100%. Worked great, I verified the scale was correct. It was five bucks per page for black and white.
Dan-O
Member
I’ve printed plans at Staples before and it’s worked out well. Lately I’ve been using my cnc as a plotter and then cutting out with a knife. I’ve used tiny end mills on the cnc but the foam board cuts are always fuzzy and the sanding/clean up takes a while. This way is pretty fast, restful, quiet, and the edges are nice and clean.
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GhostFlyer
New member
Pretty cool using a cnc as a plotter. Wish I had that option.
One more general tip. When I first looked at the plans I wasn't sure what size paper was needed. You can kinda tell from the scale in the upper right. I found turning on rulers in the PDF viewer helped me confirm the paper size. Another option is to view the properties on a given page and look for 'Page Size'
Lastly, there is a page on the FT site on printing plans.
One more general tip. When I first looked at the plans I wasn't sure what size paper was needed. You can kinda tell from the scale in the upper right. I found turning on rulers in the PDF viewer helped me confirm the paper size. Another option is to view the properties on a given page and look for 'Page Size'
Lastly, there is a page on the FT site on printing plans.
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