…to Print Your Track Plan

3rd PlanIt supports printing the plan to whatever scale you want.  It’s easy to print the entire plan, or just a portion, on 1 letter-sized page as you develop the plan.

A 1:1 sized printout is needed to easily transfer the design to sheet material.  Producing a 1:1 sized printout is always performed by dividing the area you want printed into multiple “diagrams”, printing each one and taping them along registration marks to make a huge composite.

If you don’t want to do any extra configuration, you can print a bazillion letter-sized sheets, tape them together along the registration marks, re-adjust your work a hundred times and then give up altogether.  No, it’s not THAT bad but it is a frustrating experience.

-OR-

You can print just a few diagrams (like maybe 4) to reduce the tape-up work, minimize misalignments and have time left to watch the game. There are many discussion threads on this subject so know that there are lots of options.

Here’s what I did.  I created a few “giant diagrams” as PDF files and then had the local UPS store print them on their large format printer and taped them to make a “giant composite”.  

However, to produce a PDF that is truly gigantic requires work that should only be attempted if you’re fully comfortable with your PC.  Click in the image below to read the complete procedure.