Guides · Printing
Print at 100%: the one setting that ruins templates
Nearly every wrong template comes back to a printer that scaled the page. The bar on the sheet is how you know.
The discipline
- In the print dialog choose Actual size or 100%. Never Fit to page, Shrink to fit or borderless. Some drivers drop back to Fit every time the dialog opens, so check it on every print until you know yours.
- Every sheet carries a 100 mm calibration bar. Put a tape across it before you mark any metal. 100 mm means the sheet came out at 1:1.
- Offer the first template up to the metal before you cut a batch.
Paper
A4 is fine. Templates tile across A4, A3, Letter, Legal or Tabloid with crosshairs printed on each sheet, so you line the pages up at the crosshairs and tape them into one full-size pattern. A3 just means fewer sheets to join on the big stuff.
No printer on site
Use the mark-out table. Every fitting gives you its ordinates, so you can set the pattern out straight onto the sheet with a rule, a square and a scriber. Same numbers the template is drawn from; it just takes longer.
The bar measures short? Your printer is scaling. Back into the dialog, 100% or Actual size, turn off any fit option, print one sheet, measure again.