How to Print to Scale from Google SketchUp 8

Sometimes, instead of printing exactly what you see on your Google SketchUp screen so that it fits on a sheet of paper, you may need to print a drawing to scale. The steps below show you how to produce a scaled print from SketchUp. When the user-interface elements are different for the two platforms, the ones for Mac are shown in parentheses.

Before you begin, make sure that you’ve switched to Parallel Projection and that your view is lined up the right way. Follow these steps to produce a scaled print:

1. Choose File, Print Setup (Page Setup).

2. Select a printer, paper size, and paper orientation, and then click OK.

3. Choose File, Print Preview (Document Setup).

4. Deselect the Fit to Page (Fit View to Page) check box.

5. Windows: Make sure that the Use Model Extents check box is deselected.

   Mac users don’t have this option.

6. Enter the scale at which you want to print your model view.

   If you want to print a drawing at 1/4-inch scale, enter the following:

   • 1 Inches into the In the Printout (In Drawing) box

   • 4 Feet into the In SketchUp (In Model) box

   If you want to produce a print at 1:100 scale, enter the following:

   • 1 m into the In the Printout (In Drawing) box

   • 100 m into the In SketchUp (In Model) box

7. Take note of how many pages you’ll need to print your drawing.

   If you’re using Windows, you can check this in the Tiled Sheet Print Range area of the dialog box. On a Mac, the number of pages you’ll need appears in the Pages Required section of the Document Setup dialog box. If you want to print on a different-sized piece of paper, change the setting in the Print Setup (Page Setup) dialog box.

8. If you want to print your drawing on a single sheet and it won’t fit, use a smaller scale.

   Using the 1/4 inch = 1 foot example, try shrinking the drawing to 3/16 inch = 1 foot scale. To do this, enter the following:

   • 3 Inches into the In the Printout (In Drawing) box

   • 16 Feet into the In SketchUp (In Model) box

9. When you’re happy with how your drawing will print, click OK.

10. Perform the step based on your computer:

    • Windows: If you like what you see in the Print Preview dialog box, click the Print button (in the upper-left corner) to open the Print dialog box.

    • Mac: Choose File, Print.

11. In the Print dialog box, click OK to send your print job to the printer.