Knowing Your Plotter’s Origins

Knowing Your Plotter’s Origins
Another important consideration is the location of your plotter’s origin. For example, on some plotters,
the lower-left corner of the plot area is used as the origin. Other plotters use the center of the plot area
as the origin. When you plot a drawing that is too large to fit the sheet on a plotter that uses a corner for the origin, the image is pushed toward the top and to the right of the sheet (see Figure 8.5). When you
plot a drawing that is too large to fit on a plotter that uses the center of the paper as the origin, the image
is pushed outward in all directions from the center of the sheet.



In each situation, the origin determines a point of reference from which you can relate your
drawing in the computer to the physical output. After you understand this, you’re better equipped
to accurately place your electronic drawing on the physical medium.

Using Batch and Electronic Plots
The focus of this chapter so far has been printer or plotter hard-copy output. But a major part of your
work will involve the transmission of electronic versions of your documents. More than ever, architects
and engineers are using the Internet to exchange documents of all types, so AutoCAD offers several tools
to make the process easier.
I’ve mentioned that you can control some of your output settings thorough the Plot And Publish tab of
the Options dialog box. The Publish features includes items that enable you to “print” your drawings as
a file that can be e-mailed to clients and consultants or posted on an FTP site or website. The Publish features
let you create a single file that contains multiple pages so you can combine several drawing sheets
into one file.
The Publish feature also enables you to plot several drawings at once without having to load and print
each one individually. This can be helpful when you’ve finished a set of drawings and want to plot them
during a break or overnight. Chapter 27 gives you a detailed look at the Publish feature.