cornish trains jez Posted June 23, 2015 Share Posted June 23, 2015 Good evening, could anyone tell me how to export a trackplan to pdf and include the background shape please. I have found how to print the plan with the background shape but not export it to the pdf. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks. Best regards, Jeremy Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold martin_wynne Posted June 24, 2015 RMweb Gold Share Posted June 24, 2015 Hi Jeremy, When this preview dialog appears, tick this box to include background picture shapes: Bear in mind this may take a lot longer to create the PDF file than usual. It also requires a system with plenty of memory. regards, Martin. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
cornish trains jez Posted June 24, 2015 Author Share Posted June 24, 2015 Thanks Martin. I tried that and I didn't seem to work. Do I have to save the plan and background shapes as one first? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold martin_wynne Posted June 24, 2015 RMweb Gold Share Posted June 24, 2015 Thanks Martin. I tried that and I didn't seem to work. Do I have to save the plan and background shapes as one first? No, there is no need to save anything before exporting. However, you will need to save at some stage, and it is a good idea to do so before working with large image shapes in case they cause your system to stop responding. Printing or exporting picture shapes full size involves very significant magnification of the image and requires lots of system resources. How many pages are in your PDF file? Try creating them one or two at a time in a separate PDF file for each one. Which version of Windows are you using? Which PDF reader program are you using? The picture shapes may be in the PDF file, but not being displayed by your reader program because they are too large. How big are your picture shape files and PDF files? If you ask again on the Templot Club forum you may be able to attach them on there (they are likely to be too big for RMweb attachments). regards, Martin. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
cornish trains jez Posted June 24, 2015 Author Share Posted June 24, 2015 The plan is currently 73 A3 pages long! (Around 4,000KB in size) Madness I know! I'll try printing one or two to see if the background picture prints, as like you say, it could be the reader not displaying it. I'm using an HP laptop with, I think, windows XP. The pdf reader is adobe. I also have another problem in that when the plan is displayed in full with the boxes (i.e a1, a2, b1, b2 etc...) giving the location of each page, there is a section that is not included. Do I need to adjust any of the settings? Thanks for all your help Martin. I'm new to Templot but keen to learn as it's such a fantastic piece of kit! Best regards, Jeremy Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold martin_wynne Posted June 24, 2015 RMweb Gold Share Posted June 24, 2015 I also have another problem in that when the plan is displayed in full with the boxes (i.e a1, a2, b1, b2 etc...) giving the location of each page, there is a section that is not included. Do I need to adjust any of the settings? Hi Jeremy, Templot prints only pages which contain track. This is to prevent it churning out lots of blank pages in the middle of a track plan. This can be a bit of a nuisance if you have pages containing only background shapes, sketchboard items, etc. But you can get round this problem when needed, by adding a very short bit of track on the relevant page. And I do mean short, say only 0.5mm long. If it is a centre-line-only template it will be almost invisible. A laptop with WindowsXP is not the most up to date system and may be struggling a bit with such a large plan. There won't be any problem with the templates, but if a picture shape is being magnified to cover 73 A3 pages the memory requirements are massive. A trick you could try would be to break the picture shape into several smaller ones added side-by-side on the trackpad. You can't do that in Templot (yet!), you would need to do it in a graphics editor program. They are then output one at a time and don't need so much memory. You could also try exporting at a reduced size, to see if the export is working. If it exports ok at say 10% size but not full size, you know it is memory problems. Adobe Reader is the most troublesome of the bunch and often fails to display stuff if it takes a dislike to it. Also it won't display very large pages such as posters over about 4 metres long. My preference is PDF-XChange Viewer, (free) from: http://www.tracker-software.com/product/pdf-xchange-viewer edit: p.s. don't forget when printing templates from a PDF reader, you must set the page scaling to "none" or 100%. This is not the default setting, which usually defaults to "fit to page" in most PDF readers. I don't know any reason why this would affect printing image shapes, but it may do. Thanks for your kind words. regards, Martin. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold martin_wynne Posted June 24, 2015 RMweb Gold Share Posted June 24, 2015 p.s. Jeremy, When you set the page size for the PDF export, make sure it fits comfortably within your A3 printer margins, including the Templot red trim margins and preferably with a bit to spare all round. If the page breaks over the page limits, this could explain many items going missing. For example metafile items won't display at all if they don't fit within the limits. Martin. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
cornish trains jez Posted June 24, 2015 Author Share Posted June 24, 2015 Hi Martin, Thanks again for your help. I'm going away for a few days now but will do a few test prints when I get back. The section that wasn't included does have track on it so I'm unsure as to why it hasn't been saved as part of the plan. Maybe I'll add a short piece of track like you say and see if it includes it that way. Best regards, Jeremy Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
84f Posted June 25, 2015 Share Posted June 25, 2015 Sorry to jump in if not appropriate - but exactly how do you save the trackplan with the background images - I was puzzling this for ages last night - I am no doubt missing something really basic and fundamental. Thanks Robin Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold martin_wynne Posted June 25, 2015 RMweb Gold Share Posted June 25, 2015 Sorry to jump in if not appropriate - but exactly how do you save the trackplan with the background images - I was puzzling this for ages last night - I am no doubt missing something really basic and fundamental. Hi Robin, Background images are called "picture shapes" and are part of your background shapes. Background shapes are saved in .bgs files, entirely separately from your track plan templates which are saved in .box files. This makes it easy to save your baseboard outlines, railway room outline, garden fence, scanned maps, etc., just once. And then use these as a background when trying several different track plans. To save your background shapes, click the save all as... button (1) on the background shapes dialog: If you want them back in the next Templot session, click the recent files... button (2) or the reload... button (3). The above is all completely separate from saving your track templates in your .box files. regards, Martin. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold martin_wynne Posted June 25, 2015 RMweb Gold Share Posted June 25, 2015 p.s. Robin, If when you save the file you give it the name "start", Templot will load it automatically each time you start Templot. Martin. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
84f Posted June 25, 2015 Share Posted June 25, 2015 Thanks for clarifying , Martin Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
cornish trains jez Posted July 2, 2015 Author Share Posted July 2, 2015 Hi Martin, Here is a photo of a section of the plan (excuse the photo quality!) that is not included when I save it. I have also noticed that it has gone over the "0" in both directions. Is there a way of shuffling the plan across? I have also tried to save just the one page to include the background shape and it has not saved the background shape. Should I try a different PDF program?Maybe the one you suggested? Thanks again for all your continued help and sorry to be a pain with all my questions and problems. Best regards, Jeremy Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold martin_wynne Posted July 2, 2015 RMweb Gold Share Posted July 2, 2015 Hi Jeremy, Your plan has strayed into the negative quadrants on the grid (i.e. to the left of or below the zero positions). As such it won't be included in template prints or PDF files unless you move the page origin (the place where printing starts). You have two choices: 1. move the page origin, or 2. move both the trackplan and the background picture shape by exactly the same amount to keep them aligned. The first is easier, and then you can see if it has cured your problem. First tick this box so that you can see what you are doing: Then press SHIFT+CTRL+F10 keys, or click the action > mouse actions: trackpad > move page origin menu item. You will then see the printed page outlines as dotted purple lines, and you can drag them down towards the bottom left until they include all your track plan. Then try printing or exporting a PDF file again. regards, Martin. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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