I recently received the following request:

• I'd also like to see a thorough discussion/demonstration of Printing options and manipulating the output in SU, including printing in full scale for templates, print tiling options/procedures/tips and tricks.

OK, I'll describe in the following what I use and find important in printing from SketchUp. I should let you know however,  that my experience is only with PCs, and I am sure there are differences in using a Mac. Also, I've read Chapter 12 of "Google SketchUp for Dummies" and think printing is covered quite well in this book.

I. Doing your basic print
     a. Arrange your model view on the screen as you want it to look in the print out
          i. I zoom in to make the view as big as possible to fit the screen
               1) The print out will duplicate what you've arranged on the screen  (including white space).
                     a) Note that the aspect ratio of your screen will modify what you get in the print. For example, my laptop has a wider aspect ratio than my desktop. I find that I get better prints from my desktop since that screen has an aspect ratio that better matches 8 1/2 x 11 paper in landscape mode.
         ii. Many times I work with Orbit, Pan, and Zoom to achieve the best view of the dimensions
        iii. Most of the time, I've saved Scenes in SketchUp for every page I want to print
              1) If you are using Scenes, then after arranging the desired model view, update your Scene so you can return to the Tab for future print-outs.
     b. I typically select the Printer Icon on the Tool Bar
     c. Up pops the Print Dialog Box
 d.

      e. If you have multiple printers, check to make sure you have the correct selection in the "Name" selection box
      f. The first thing I do is click on "Properties", to make sure that my print format is Landscape
           i. I rarely use Portrait format since the Landscape view results in a larger image of the model.
                1) Landscape corresponds with the computer screen orientation and aspect ratio therefore gives the largest image
     g. I make sure that "Fit to page" is checked
     h. For "Print Quality", I typically use Standard
            i. You may want to experiment with other settings to obtain the desired quality
                 1) Standard seems fine for my work
            ii. I never use "Use high accuracy HLR"
     i. There is an option in the Tabbed Scene Print Range, to print all or a few of your scenes.
             i. I generally only print the "Current View"
             ii. Seems I end up wasting paper when I print all scenes, for one reason or another
     j. "Use model extents" should be unchecked
             i. I think this is a worthless option for furniture design. It does not make sense for the kind of printing I am doing since I have many scenes in my files. I suppose it would work if you only had one model view in your file.

II. Printing a full-size template
     a. Make sure your Camera is in "Parallel Projection"
           i. You cannot print a full-size template in Perspective mode
     b. Also, you should have your camera view in one of the standard views, such as
          i. Top
          ii. Front
         iii. Right
         iv. Back
          v. Left
                  1) I set up a Tool Bar with the Camera Standard Views so that I can quickly set this option
     c. In this case I do not click on the Print Icon, rather File/Print Preview
           i. I find that I need to adjust the view to get the least amount of tiled pages. This is an iterative process, so the Print Preview avoids wasting paper and ink. Also you can "resize the window" using the Windows buttons in the upper right corner. Adjust the size of the window to remove as much "white space" in your view. This is similar to "cropping a photo". Then when you do the next step of Print Preview, you will reduce the number of tiled pages required to produce the full-size template.
     d. After you click on Print Preview, the following dialog box pops up:
 e.

      f. Again check Properties to set your paper to Portrait or Landscape
     g. Uncheck "Fit to page"
     h. Set your Scale so that it is 1 In the printout, and 1 in SketchUp
      i. I look at the Tiled Sheet Print Range and note the number of pages that it will take to fully print the full-size template. In this case it will take 6 pages
      j. I click OK, and the following view of the template will appear
 k.

      l. Note that I have a two-page view of the template, which is an option that I like by clicking on one of the tabs in the above view
     m. By scrolling through all six pages, I see that I only have to print four pages to get all that I need
      n. If I like this arrangement, I can click on Print in the upper left hand corner
      o. Or, I can Close, and return to SketchUp to re-arrange the view on the screen (Pan and Zoom)
           i. No orbiting here, since you have to be in a standard Camera View
          ii. This is an iterative process of going back and forth to try out the Print Preview
          iii. You can also try a Portrait view to see if this reduces the number of pages
      p. When I click Print on this Preview, I get the dialog box again
 q.

      r. In this specific case I know that I only need to print pages in the Print Range 1 to 4, so I will change from 6 to 4 and click OK

There are a whole set of other options when printing from SketchUp exported PDF files, or when printing from Layout. I'll cover these cases in another post.

Tim
http://killenwood.com