Print Layout Options

To open the Print Layout Options, choose Print Options from the File menu and click on the Print Layout tab. The print layout options control how your document appears on paper. For more information on these options and printing in general, see the Printing Overview.

All the options in this section apply to the current document. They will be saved with the document.

Summary Line

The type of layout - Best Fit, Automatic Fit, Multiple Fit or Custom Fit.

The scaling - 100% means print at normal size, 50% means print half size, 200% means print at twice the normal size.

The orientation of the job - Upright or Sideways. This is normally used to fit landscape pages onto portrait pages by rotating the drawing when printing (see the orientation buttons below). This effect can also be achieved by changing options in the Print Setup dialog box, but it is best to leave these settings alone, and use the controls provided in the Print Layout Options instead.

How many pages, if any, will fit onto the paper with the current settings. This takes account of the print margins of the printer (that is, which areas around the edge that the printer is physically unable to print to).

If the summary says 'Page only partially printable', this means that part of the page lies outside the Print Borders. See Displaying the print borders.

Paper Size

This field shows the currently selected paper size. (The paper size is defined using the Print Setup dialog box.)

Orientation

These options choose upright or sideways printing. Upright prints without rotating the document, whereas Sideways rotates the document through 90 degrees.

For example, to print a landscape page on most printers requires sideways printing. The best way to set the orientation is by using the Automatic Fit option, this will set all the Print Layout Options to the most suitable values. Alternatively, turn on the print borders so you can see how the document will print (see Displaying the Print borders). See the Printing Overview for more details.

Note: This option is not the same as the one shown in the Print Setup or the Printer Properties dialog box. Ensure that the printer is always set to Portrait printing and that you only use the Print Layout Options orientation buttons to fit the drawing on the paper.

Scale

The document can be scaled for printing. 100% is full size. This can be used to print several copies of a document on a page, see Multiple Fit below.

Print Whole Spread

This option is only available when the current document is a double page spread. If this option is set, the spread is printed as one page.

Print Individual Pages

This option is only available when the current document is a double page spread. If this option is set, the two sections of the spread are printed as separate pages.

Best Fit

If you choose this option, your document will be moved to the center of the page and scaled so it fills the paper (within the print borders).

Automatic Fit

This option, like Best Fit, will choose the most appropriate orientation for your document. However Automatic Fit keeps print size at 100% and doesn't alter the content's placement on the page.

Custom fit

This option allows you set all aspects of the printing manually. The Orientation buttons can be used to choose the orientation of the printout. The scale can be altered using the Scale field. The Top and Left margin fields can be changed. These set where the top left-hand corner of the page appears on the printer's paper. The Width and Height fields give you an alternative way of setting the print scale. When you change one of these settings, the other changes to ensure the page is always printed with a 100% aspect ratio
.

Multiple Fit

If you change the scaling, you can print multiple copies of the Xara LX document on a page. To print multiple copies, choose this option, enter a value for the number of copies needed across the page (Rows), the number down the page (Columns) and the distance between each (Gutter).

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