Printing plans

[ga1ba2]

Got a few Xkits from Semroc. I am having problems printing the plans from Jimz's site. Is there a trick to doing it? :confused:

[sandman]

Yes there is a trick to it.

If it's pdf then nothing special need to be done, just download it.

If it's a tiff like most of them you have to follow these steps;

1.) right click on the image
2.) on the pull down menu click on the "save taget as"
3.) find a file or create a file location. I just download it to my desktop and deal with it later.
4.) down load the file.

That's it!

[CPMcGraw]

Got a few Xkits from Semroc. I am having problems printing the plans from Jimz's site. Is there a trick to doing it? :confused:


If it's pdf then nothing special need to be done, just download it.

If it's a tiff like most of them you have to follow these steps;

1.) right click on the image
2.) on the pull down menu click on the "save taget as"
3.) find a file or create a file location. I just download it to my desktop and deal with it later.
4.) down load the file.


Some have indicated their imaging software does not always display the images at full-size. PDFs sometimes print at a smaller size to maintain a border around the edges. Be sure to set the printing scale at 100% for things like fin patterns, decals, alignment guides, etc...

[ga1ba2]

Thanks for the info. I got all 3 plans I needed. I had missed the PDF button on the site. :rolleyes:

[o1d_dude]

Some of the tail feather templates include a scale or ruler for purposes of verifying the that templates print out at the right size.

You just take a ruler to the printed out scale and verify that the ruler and scale match. Most image software allows you to adjust the size of printed output by a percentage as needed.

It might take a few tries to get it right.

[Mark II]

When I download individual pages from JimZ's site, I create a separate folder on my desktop with the plan's name, and put all the pages there. It makes things much easier when I want to aggregate them all into a single file, as I describe below.

If you happen to have Microsoft Office, you can collect the individual TIFFs into a single file by using the Microsoft Office Document Imaging tool, which is a stand-alone utility that should have been installed when you installed Office.

To collect multiple TIFFs into a single file, right-click on the first page TIFF, and select "Open With.." Select Microsoft Office Document Imaging from the list. Once the page opens, go up to the menu bar, pull down the File menu, and select "Insert File..." If you have put all of the pages into their own folder, it will be easy to find them. I usually start by opening the first page, and the insert pages in sequence by adding each successive page to the end of the file. When you are done, choose "Save As..." to give the file a new name. Then whenever you open the file in M.O.D.I., you will be able to view all of the pages.

The big downside with M.O.D.I. is that it only works with TIFF images, and quite often some of the pages in the plans at JimZ's site are not in that format. There is often a very helpful page that is in the form of a text file, and decal scans are often in JPG format. There are work-arounds that I use to convert those pages into TIFF format so that I can add them to the file. I also have a way to convert the collected TIFFs into a PDF. If you are interested, I can outline the work-around procedures for the two file types, but I would need to describe each one in its own post. I can also describe how I convert the TIFF into a PDF in another post, too, if you are interested in that as well.

It may also be possible to collect the TIFFs into one file and convert them into a PDF by using OpenOffice, but I haven't tried that route yet. (It may actually turn out to be simpler than the method that I have been using, but I don't know about that yet.) Craig McGraw turned me on to the OpenOffice.org suite last year, so maybe he would know if it can do what I am talking about. ;) [Punt...]

The three big advantages that I find in converting the TIFFs into a PDF file are that it reduces the file size considerably, all the pages are in one place and are easier to read through, and finally that Acrobat Reader has nice search and print features.

Mark \\.

[Gus]

Mark,

Please send a copy of any of the plan sets that you've converted to PDF back to JimZ so he can post the PDF version as well.

Thanks,


Steve

[CPMcGraw]

...It may also be possible to collect the TIFFs into one file and convert them into a PDF by using OpenOffice, but I haven't tried that route yet. (It may actually turn out to be simpler than the method that I have been using, but I don't know about that yet.) Craig McGraw turned me on to the OpenOffice.org suite last year, so maybe he would know if it can do what I am talking about...

Not only does it work, it works easier than what you've described. Forget using the MS image software. Just get the latest OpenOffice version, 3.1 (actually a beta, but it works great!) and just INSERT | PICTURE on a page. It handles TIFFs with no issues. If the image is 8.5" x 11" (or less), right-click the image, select PICTURE, then click the "Original Size" button. The image will expand to its full size. After adding enough pages (INSERT | MANUAL BREAK) and filling them with each TIFF, you then FILE | EXPORT AS PDF, and give the file a name. There is also a tool bar button to do the export.

Did we mention OpenOffice is FREE???

To get OpenOffice, CLICK HERE (http://download.openoffice.org/680/?intcmp=1461) . The file you want is in the block "Full Installations with en-US".

[Mark II]

Thanks, Craig!

I suspected as much. The only thing that had me concerned was page control/pagination. One thing I like about M.O.D.I. is that each graphic is printed on its own individual page, no matter what. I don't have to worry about padding the pages out, inserting page breaks, etc. and then having to go in and manually re-adjust everything if I move a graphic or insert another one. I might still have to edit some graphics or pages in GIMP to have them laid out nicely onto the printed page, like I do now, even if I switch to using OpenOffice. Also, in many plans, some pages are drastically different in size than the other pages; fin patterns, for example, might be on a 6" x 12" page. I wouldn't want to try to force that into a 8.5" x 11" page. I will need to play with the modules to see if they can handle having pages with different dimensions within the same document.

For the text files, what I do now is print them with CutePDF to convert the page into Acrobat format. Then I use the camera tool in Reader to copy the entire page to the clipboard. I then paste the clipboard image as a New Image in GIMP, scale it to 8.5" x 11", and save it as a TIFF file. The process sounds more complicated than it actually is. What is nice about it is that the page comes out looking much more neatly formatted than it does in the Notebook or in WordPad, and it is a graphic now instead of a WP document. I don't have to fuss with it line by line, adjusting character spacing, column formatting and line breaks, like I would need to do if I opened the text file in a word processing program. The Acrobat/CutePDF renderer takes care of all of that. The text is bitmapped (but it is also anti-aliased), so it isn't quite as sharp as if it was rendered with OpenType, but you would need to look at the printed page with a loupe to see the difference. Still, it is always much sharper than the text on the scanned instructions pages. I am weighing whether or not to continue doing this even if I switch to using OOo to convert the plans.

Mark \\.

[CPMcGraw]

....in many plans, some pages are drastically different in size than the other pages; fin patterns, for example, might be on a 6" x 12" page. I wouldn't want to try to force that into a 8.5" x 11" page...

In that case, go into the document's Formatting and Settings (Style) dialog, and resize the Default page. OOo defaults to 8.5 x 11 because that's what most people still use in their printers. For a PDF, it won't matter what page size you set, it should follow whatever the document calls for.

My earlier point was OOo can handle a TIFF without the need for additional software.

[Ltvscout]

OOo
Is that some type of monkey call? ;)

[CPMcGraw]

Is that some type of monkey call? ;)

It's the sound one makes when they realize they don't need to spend $400 or more for a copy of M$ Office. :D

Unlike the sound they make when they realize they could have saved that much after buying M$ Office... :mad:

It's the abbreviation for OpenOffice.org (http://www.openoffice.org) ...

[Mark II]

It's the sound one makes when they realize they don't need to spend $400 or more for a copy of M$ Office. :D
Actually, I got my copy of Office 2003 for free (and no, not because it came with the computer). :p

Unlike the sound they make when they realize they could have saved that much after buying M$ Office... :mad:
Sort of like the sound made by an anthropomorphic gecko (with an East End or Peckham accent)? ("You could have saved a bunch of money buy switching to...") :D

It's the abbreviation for OpenOffice.org (http://www.openoffice.org) ...
So easy, the owner of an online forum could do it! :chuckle:

Mark \\.