Setting the size of a schematic sheet

[warpco]

Hello guys. A few days ago I started to learn Altium Designer and discovered some strange behavior. I created my first component and decided to see how it will look on paper. I added this component to a schematic sheet, set the sheet size to A4 using standard style



and... noticed that the sheet on my screen has the wrong proportions! To make it more clear I made a screenshot. Here is my schematic sheet. As I said, the size of the sheet is set to A4. According to the standard, A4 has 0.707 height/width ratio, but neither A/B nor D/C equal to 0.707! Why is it so?



I searched the forum, but couldn't find anything about this. It seems like something very basic, so I am probably doing something wrong...

[T3sl4co1l]

Altium's defaults are all wrong.  No idea how or why, they just are.

(US) Letter has the wrong aspect ratio in the other direction, so it's not just like they're accounting for paper margins or something.

Just set a custom size, using the actual standards.  You probably want to make your own templates anyway, for default parameters, title block, logo or what have you.  It's not a big deal, and sharpens things up.

Tim

[D3f1ant]

Besides the dimensions issues, A4 sheet size is a bit small. We use A3 dimensions and publish/print to A4, looks much nicer, IMO.

[warpco]

Altium's defaults are all wrong.  No idea how or why, they just are.

Such popular and expensive software with such stupid bugs. What a shame.

Okay, how about another question. I've made my first component and now I want to see how it will look on paper. I've manually set the sheet size to A4.  In the "Page Setup..." dialog I've set the scale to 1 and paper size to A4 to get a 1:1 print. And that's what I've got in the print preview:



It looks like the actual print region where Altium can print is smaller than A4 (you can see it if you click "Show Print Region" in the context menu). That's absolutely normal, printers generally can’t print to the very edge of the paper. What is NOT normal is that any other software will just crop the content, without "smearing" it over a dozen pages! I am the user, I want to print with 1:1 scale, I know that the edges will be cropped, just print it. Nope. Four pages.

Next I tried to export the schematic to a PDF using Smart PDF wizard. The result was kind of crappy. It seems that the paper size was set to Letter instead of A4 and the scale was set to "Fit on page". Hey! But this smarty wizard did not give me a chance to specify the paper size and scaling! You gotta be kidding me!

But I did not give up and after a dozen unsuccessful attempts I decided to create an output job to export my schematic to PDF. There I found page size and scale settings... And, miracle of miracles, though the export preview also looked like on the picture above, I've got a correct A4 single-page PDF! Finally! Tomorrow I will try to print the schematic despite the print preview looks wrong, maybe it will work. Or not? Is this another Altium quirk?

Besides the dimensions issues, A4 sheet size is a bit small. We use A3 dimensions and publish/print to A4, looks much nicer, IMO.

Thanks for the advice! At my work EEs also use A3 when they give me a schematic (I am a software engineer).

[T3sl4co1l]

There's also been issues with PDF sheet sizes being wildly wrong, like "Letter" being 25x16" or something like that (I forget what exactly).  The number being wrong, but it still looks fine when scaled to the correct size sheet of course.  I think that was mostly fixed in the last couple years though.  Best way to scale a PCB print is probably to add the border yourself to set the scale automatically, or use the sheet.

Don't be shocked.  The quality of software is inverse to its price (except when the price is zero, in which case you're dividing by zero and the quality is indeterminate -- it might be very good or very bad).  5-6 digit enterprise software is maddening to use (or so I hear).  AD is as full of quirks as everything else in the same price bracket.

Tim

[warpco]

I've tried to print the document and got four pages as in the print preview. So the only way to print a document in 1:1 scale is to first export it to a PDF using output job and then print this PDF from any PDF viewer. It's very sad that there are so many such stupid and long lived bugs in Altium, but instead of fixing them they give us a dark UI theme. Anyway, thanks for the help.