How can I get a useful 2D print on my printer.

william_4

It seems like I have to position things 3 or 4 times every time I try to print out dimensions I have assigned to a part, either it is to big for my printer to get it all, to small to read, positioned so I miss part of the drawing, etc. Is there a way to know I'm going to get what I see printed to my printer.

lougallo

@Bill H  You are correct we are missing a preview that you can modify to indicate where things will be located.  I have the most luck using Landscape and A5.



I will attach you to the improvement for this.  If you use Show dimensions on the sketches that contain the values you are after for that view, they will show up as well.  You could also just edit the sketch and print something like this:



Keep an eye out for a ticket soon. ~Lou

andrew_troup

@3Dexter : on the offchance that you are not familiar with the RMB abbreviation : Right Mouse Button

jakeramsley

In the documents options there is an option for "Print...".  This will give you a jpg of what is on your screen and a preview of it.  From here you can choose print and send it to a printer.

1.  Document options -> Print...
2. Print preview (I did a bad job).

william_4

Did you notice that what you are printing doesn't include everything on the screen? That's exactly what I am talking about. Now you have to go back and position your part again in the original screen then select print and hope you will get what you want in the print screen. Very frustrating and a huge failure as far as I am concerned.

3dcad

+1 For 'Fit to page' when printing workspace.

william_4

If I hold down "shift + 1" all at the same time it shows the front view and fits to screen but it is still cut off when I print. I guess I'm just not smart enough to do it properly or I'm not doing it in the right place or screen.

lougallo

@Bill H  You are correct we are missing a preview that you can modify to indicate where things will be located.  I have the most luck using Landscape and A5.



I will attach you to the improvement for this.  If you use Show dimensions on the sketches that contain the values you are after for that view, they will show up as well.  You could also just edit the sketch and print something like this:



Keep an eye out for a ticket soon. ~Lou

andrew_troup

The ability to print what's on the screen at a desired scale AND at a desired location on the page (without going through the hassle of creating a drawing) is a capability which seemed to elude Solidworks forever. It seems to me the provision of such capabilities would be a great way of coaxing users across.
There are still occasions where the quickest way of progressing a design, whether at the conceptual or the detail stage, is to hand sketch on a printout (or a succession of them) and it's helpful if this can be done at a nominated scale. 

william_4

I am a home machinist and this is a hobby for me. I can't machine everything I build with a CNC lathe or mill. It is important for me to have the capability to print out dimensions on a drawing to take to my mill, drill press, or lathe. if I wanted to sketch everything out on a piece of paper and dimension it by hand then I don't need a computer software program to do that. I consider drawings to be a very essential part of any software package and should have a very high priority to complete a successful Cad package. I believe Onshape will be a very good complete Cad Utility but I'm ready to use it right now. I believe I will have to export my work into a different Cad system that I can create drawings from so I can continue with my projects. 

kiwilee

@Bill H I know what you mean.
Did you try 123d Design or Fusion360 ?
Both have evolved lightning fast over the past 12months. 
On shape is still developing these work features. 
I wish they would grab a few drawing features from Siemens  Solidedge ST7  

_Ðave_

Windows or any other snipping tool will make a quick and simple job of this at least for now. I'm sure Onshape will come up with something better soon.

william_4

I know there are many different programs that will give me a print but I am not currently using those programs. I'm using Onshape right now and I'm sure that when they complete their drawings capability I will be able to use it to do the prints. I just thought that I might have been doing something wrong but I have my answer now, I just have to wait.

_Ðave_

Actually I was referring to creating a sketch in Onshape and then just taking a quick pic of the screen with a snipping tool which can be readily available in your task bar, Print the pic and take it to your machine. That might help you not having to open another cad program at least until such time that Onshape has drawings available.

Below is a quick snip of a sketch in Onshape I could size it to whatever part or size of the screen I wished.

Dave

_Ðave_

william_4

Actually my question has already been answered. I could just use 'Alt+Print Screen' also but you still end up with a messy bunch of dimensions you can't make since of. I'll wait for the drawing capability and make do as necessary till then. I don't really have a snipping tool, I don't think, not sure what a snipping tool is.

brucebartlett

In some case I have projected edges (Use) on a new sketch and added driven dimensions for a print out but this not ideal and you end up dumb model sketches which get messy in the tree. Also I can't get multiply sketches to show dimensions at the same time.

I think it would be a great feature to do a scale print mostly especially 1:1 straight from the part studio, no drawings involved, I am sure this would be pretty easy to add in.

I also like the idea of being able to add annotations, ie MBD's that could be turned on to show on these prints (not using sketches) also for 3d viewing of parts during manufacture. Maybe these could even be at the part level. eg. when in the part studio you could RMB on the part in the parts list to hide show annotation for that part. 

3dexter

It would be great to have an option to save images in PNG format (bottomless), widely used in presentations and other arts!

brucebartlett

@3Dexter if you RBM RMB on the preview image in the current print dialogue you can save out as PNG.

3dexter

@BruceBartlett could demonstrate through images?

brucebartlett

@3Dexter  like this.

andrew_troup

@3Dexter : on the offchance that you are not familiar with the RMB abbreviation : Right Mouse Button

brucebartlett

Sorry, I have edited my post to RMB

william_4

I find this to be a reasonable solution to the problem. This way I can shrink it down small enough to make sure I capture everything and then print to fit page.

3dexter

brucebartlett said: @3Dexter if you RBM RMB on the preview image in the current print dialogue you can save out as PNG.


@brucebartlett still can not save in PNG without the white background!

Currently the alternative is to remove the white background with Phtotoshop.

In SolidWorks you can save PNG images without the background!

Maybe we will have this option in Onshape in the future ...

Sample images below.

andrew_troup

@dexter_3 : great point. +1

brucebartlett

@dexter_3 it would be good to have the bottomless format, no post photoshop edit. I didn't think of that in my first post great idea.

+1 for me too

3dcad

I think it's better to wait for keyshot link, there you can get transparent alpha channel which will give a lot better image than screenshots from workspace. https://www.keyshot.com/2011/keyshot-alpha-channels-two-tuts-for-transparent-backgrounds/

Except if it's easy task to add 'transparent background' check box to print dialog.. 

3dexter

Changing the subject, Onshape team because my username forum was changed from "3Dexter" to "dexter_3"?

brucebartlett

@dxter_3Your name is driven from your cad profile in preferences (top right), did you change this ?

3dexter

Thank @brucebartlett.

But I did not change it!

Now does not accept the letter "D" capital, but okay ...

brucebartlett

@dxter_3 You'll have to ask @LouGallo

Sorry Bill, you will be getting a bit stick of this conversation on your thread.

jakeramsley

As part of our latest release, there was a task run on our servers to make sure that forum ID's were unique.  Fallout from that is that some of your forum names might have been modified (like mine was).  Apologies for any inconvenience this may have caused.