Shrink Your Drawings to Fit On Designer/2000

David C. Hay
Group R, Inc.
13 Hilshire Grove Lane
Houston, Texas 77055
(908) 236-9414
74220.1720@compuserve.com

One of the shortcomings of Designer/2000 is the fact that you cannot draw a large e/r model or function hierarchy and then directly tell the tool to squeeze it down to an 8 ½" by 11" or A4 piece of paper when printed. There is no scaling feature within Designer/2000.

It turns out, however, that by judicious use of the printer drivers and the Windows control panel, you can exercise a lot of control over how diagrams are printed. Specifically, if you have a drawing that takes the equivalent of four sheets of paper, you can in fact get the computer to print it out on one.

Here’s how:*

Postscript Printers

If you have a Postscript printer, it’s easy.

In the Control Panel, select Printers.

· Choose the Postscript printer, if you have not already done so. Make it the default printer.

· Press Options.

	Set the Scaling % to 70 or 80 percent. Do not reduce it further than that. This setting will allow you room enough for 15 to 20 entities on a page, and you don’t want more than that. Be sure to use the same Scaling % for all drawings, to maintain consistency of presentation.
	Press OK.

· Check to be sure that the orientation ("Portrait" or "Landscape") and the paper size ("A4" or "8 ½ by 11") are correct.

· Press OK again, to return to the Control Panel. Close the Control Panel and return to the Designer.

2. Go to Designer/2000, the appropriate modeler, and bring up the desired diagram on your screen.

· When you are ready to print it, select File / Print and press OK as usual.

Non-Postscript Printers

If you have a Hewlett Packard PCL-type printer, life is more difficult. The drivers for these printers do not permit scaling. But you can still do it if you are clever (or if you read the following).

Go into the Control Panel, and select Printers.

Be sure that you have at least two printer drivers on your system. You can get what you need from the original Windows disks.

ü One is the driver for your PCL printer.

ü The other is a Postscript driver. (Yes, I know, you don’t have a Postscript printer, but you need this driver anyway.) You can get a reasonable one from the Windows start-up disks by asking to install an "HP Laserjet III Postscript" printer.

	While still in the control panel, for each driver, set the default to "landscape" or "portrait", as you wish, and choose the right paper size (A4 or 8 ½" by 11").
	Also while still in the control panel, *for the Postscript driver*, select "Options" and set the "scaling" to (for example) 70%. As mentioned above, this will allow you to put up to about twenty entities to a page, which is almost too many.

2. Go to Designer/2000, the appropriate modeler, and bring up the desired diagram on your screen.

	If you have made any changes, save them before printing.
	Select File / Print Setup. Choose the Postscript printer.
	Choose Options

	On the window that comes up, confirm that Scaling % is still (for example) 70%.
	Exit from the Options window by pressing OK.

Be sure it still says "landscape" or "portrait" as you wish, and that it is specifying the right paper.

Exit from the Print Setup window by pressing OK.

A message will appear: "UCDI 20669 Printer setup changed: Changing all diagram views." Press OK.

Continue with your diagram.

When you are ready to print it, select File / Print as usual.

DO NOT say OK, and print it. This will produce for you a not so concise listing of the Postscript code that describes your picture. Alas, it will not produce the picture.

Select Setup

	Change your printer back to the PCL printer.
	Confirm the paper size and whether it is "landscape" or "portrait".
	Press OK to exit the setup window.

Press OK. to print the diagram.

A message will appear: "UCDI 20669 Printer setup changed: Changing all diagram views." Press OK.

4. Close the diagram, but do not save the changes.