Improvements to Print in Onshape

peter_hall

https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/comment/9677/#Comment_9677

Following on from the comments in email marketing thread (link) ref @andrew_troup  it seems to me that improvements could be made in this area.
1) Separate print button (not under the hamburger)
2) Default to previous requested settings (In my case A4 and landscape)
3) prominent for PNG not on right click on mouse in graphics area.
4) Ability to choose area of screen to be printed not trial and error.

Other thoughts please add.

andrew_troup

Excellent suggestions from @peter_hall

Here's a couple more:

1) When we choose the screen area per Peter's point 4, the graphic should be scaled to fit the printable area. The rectangular boundary, which we can move around and resize, should be constrained to the appropriate proportion between height and width.
It would be good to be able to alternatively specify the scale. In this mode, the draggable rectangle would expand or contract to represent the printable area at that scale.

2) It would be great to be able to save at a larger paper size (user specified as width x height of printable area) when saving a graphic: it shouldn't be limited to the default printer's available sizes. This should be arranged to permit rendering at higher pixel counts and hence effective resolution.

viru

@peter_hall and @andrew_troup , Brilliant suggestions from both of you this will definitely provide better user interface.

jakeramsley

peter_hall said:

https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/comment/9677/#Comment_9677

3) prominent for PNG not on right click on mouse in graphics area.

Hi @peter_hall,

Can you expand on what this means?  I am not following what you are asking here?

andrew_troup said:

1) When we choose the screen area per Peter's point 4, the graphic should be scaled to fit the printable area. The rectangular boundary, which we can move around and resize, should be constrained to the appropriate proportion between height and width.
It would be good to be able to alternatively specify the scale. In this mode, the draggable rectangle would expand or contract to represent the printable area at that scale.

Hi @andrew_troup,

Can you explain what you mean here in more detail?  I'm not exactly following what you mean by "scaled to fit the printable area."  I'm trying to add these requests to our system but I don't want to misinterpret them.

peter_hall

@jakeramsley
In order to save it as a PNG one has to currently do the following:
1 click on doc menu
2 click on print
3 select the page set up requirements
4 click on print again
5) Right mouse click in the document area
6) Click on save image as PNG

Surely there must be a way to quickly save a chosen area as a PNG file with it clearly show as an option within (A separate) print button? next to the document button maybe?

andrew_troup

@jakeramsley
You ask what I meant by "1) When we choose the screen area per Peter's point 4, the graphic should be scaled to fit the printable area. "
and frankly I can see why! Thanks for seeking clarification.

What it sounded like inside my brain was something more like this:

When the user elects to specify which part of the screen image to print by dragging and resizing a suitably proportioned rectangle provided by the application, the selected area should be scaled so it occupies the entire printed page, (having regard for the margins set by the user in the print dialog).  

HTH

juan_aviles

peter_hall said:

@jakeramsley
In order to save it as a PNG one has to currently do the following:
1 click on doc menu
2 click on print
3 select the page set up requirements
4 click on print again
5) Right mouse click in the document area
6) Click on save image as PNG

Surely there must be a way to quickly save a chosen area as a PNG file with it clearly show as an option within (A separate) print button? next to the document button maybe?

I didn't want to comment in the other thread since I didn't want to derail it any further.  Yes this is a way to save an image as a .png, but this is really more a function of the browser, not Onshape.  You can RMB on any picture on any site and choose "save image as...".  The sequence Peter has listed above is really just a workaround for a feature that does not exist in Onshape.

I don't need a separate button outside of the hamburger menu, but something in that menu that makes printing (or in this case, downloading) an image easier would be nice.

3dcad

I would like to have high resolution screenshot tool with selectable area. Like Lightshot, but higher resolution than just screencapture.

Edit: In addition, ability save above image as png, tif, pdf etc. For me pdf would be enough to replace the print button, you don't need to reinvent the wheel - all devices can print pdfs.

don_howe

I would like to add a header and footer option or the ability to change the current settings.

joris_kofman

I would like the print feature to print text as text and not decompose the text to lines. This would enable search-ability of drawings when balloons have been added, and when at some point in the future the auto-generated BOM is in place.

I am however happy that printed drawings are in vector format and not in some wrapped bitmap format