02/17/04 - Lately we've been having a problem printing from Layout space in AutoCAD. Basically, attempting to print layouts created with certain viewports can be tediously slow, resulting in certain items taking so long to print that they have to be cancelled by the lab monitors in the interest of allowing other prints to get through.

There are two solutions to this. One is to print from model space only, which, while fast, does not let you create a nice layout for presentations or critiques. The second solution to to output to a PDF file and print from Adobe Acrobat. Read on for instructions.

1. Go to the layout you want to print.

2. Go to the FILE menu and choose Page Setup.

3. In the Device tab, select AdobePDF as the print device.

4. In the Layout Settings tab, set your paper size and scale, as needed, and just as you would when plotting normally.

5. When you are finished setting up your plot, click the Print button. You will be prompted to choose a name for the resulting file, and a location to save the file.

6. When finished, open the file and print it normally.

That's it! Much faster than printing from layout space in AutoCAD...

J-

Jennifer Nieland is the lab coordinator for the College of the Design student computer labs.