It is good practice to generate a preview of the plotted drawing before sending the drawing to the printer or plotter. Generating a preview saves time and material.
You can preview the drawing from the Plot dialog box. The preview shows exactly how the drawing will look when plotted, including lineweights, fill patterns, and other plot style options.
When you preview your drawing, the active toolbars and tool palettes are hidden and a temporary Preview toolbar is displayed that provides buttons to plot, pan, and zoom the drawing.
In the Plot and Page Setup dialog boxes, a thumbnail preview is also displayed, which shows the printable area and the position of the drawing on the page.
Procedures
To preview a plot
- Click
.
- In the Plot dialog box, click Preview.
A preview window opens, and the cursor changes to the real-time zoom cursor.
- Right-click to display a shortcut menu with the following options: Plot, Pan, Zoom, Zoom Window, or Zoom Original (to zoom to the original preview magnification).
- Press ESC to exit the preview and return to the Plot dialog box.
- If necessary, make additional adjustments to the plot settings and preview the plotted drawing again.
- Once the settings are correct, click OK to plot the drawing.