Printing an AutoCAD Drawing - AutoCAD 2011 and AutoCAD LT 2011: No Experience Required - page 794

TIP Usually, 8.5 ″× 11 ″ (210 mm × 297 mm) format printers are con-
figured for portrait orientation. If your drawing is also set to that orienta-
tion, the origin of the plot will be in the lower-left corner. If your drawing
is in the landscape orientation, as in the example, the plot origin will move
to the upper-left corner of the page because the plot is rotated to fit on the
page. this rotation is why there's such a noticeable difference between
the top Figure 15.8 and the middle Figure 15.8.
Setting the material to be printed accurately on the page will be a result of
trial and error and getting to know your printer. I'll return to this topic shortly
when you learn how to get ready to print. If you work in a corporate environ-
ment, you should consult your company's CAD standards to see which settings
your company uses for plotting.
the Expanded Plot Dialog Box
If the Plot dialog box hasn't already been expanded, click the right-facing arrow
in the lower-right corner to expand it to include four additional groups in a stack
on the right. For now, you're primarily interested in the group on the bottom,
Drawing Orientation (see Figure 15.9).
FiGuRE 15.9 The expanded Plot dialog box
Drawing orientation The settings in this group are self-explanatory. The radio
buttons serve as a toggle between the portrait and landscape orientation, and the
Plot Upside-Down check box is an on/off toggle. The Plot Upside-Down setting is
sometimes used as a way of tricking some plotters to correctly size the binding
edge of a drawing. Because items such as OLE Objects cannot plot upside-down,
using Plot Upside-Down is typically discouraged. The preferred alternative is the
X and Y Plot Offset setting in the main part of the Plot dialog box.