Chapter 2   Printing Diagrams

This chapter explains how to use the printing facilities in VP-UML. Various print settings can be configured to make the printing of diagrams more efficient and convenient.

 

In this chapter:

    Previewing diagrams

    Printing diagrams

    Setting up pages

There are two methods to preview your work before printing:

Method 1 – Opening Print Preview using the menu bar

1.        Click on File on the menu bar. The file menu appears.

2.        Click on Print… on the file menu.  The Print Preview pane appears.

Method 2 – Opening Print Preview using the toolbar

1.        Click on the Print  button on the toolbar, the Print Preview pane appears.

A preview of the diagrams will be appeared as illustrated in the following screen.

The toolbar of the print preview pane allows you to configure the print settings. The buttons and their descriptions are shown in the table below:

Icon	Button	Function
	Print	Print the diagram(s). The Print dialog box will be opened.
	Page Setup	Set up the page properties for the diagrams to be printed such as paper size and orientation.
	Adjust Margins	Adjust the margins of the pages to be printed.
	Zoom	Select the percentage to reduce/enlarge the print preview of diagrams.
/	Paper Base Layout/Diagram Base Layout	If the Fit to Pages option is selected, and there are multiple pages in the printout, selecting Paper Base Layout will cause the distribution of pages to be paper-oriented (the diagram size is ignored in arranging the preview); while selecting Diagram Base Layout will cause the distribution of pages to be diagram-oriented. Note that this option affects the preview only; the order of the printout remains unchanged.
	Paper Place Style	To change the order of the printout. Consider a large diagram is divided into many pages, selecting From left to right will arrange the printout order from the pages on the left to the pages on the right, while selecting From top to bottom will arrange the print order from the pages on the top to the pages on the bottom.
	Fit to Ratio	Set the diagram size to fit to the specified ratio.
	Fit to Pages	Set the diagram to be printed on the number of pages specified.
	Overlapping	Set the percentage of the margins to overlap among adjacent pages.
	Show/Hide Clip Marks on Page	Select/deselect to show/hide the clip marks on the printout.
	Edit Header/Footer	Edit the header and the footer of the printout.
	Multiple Page Mode	Switch to the Multiple Page Mode to set the multiple page options.
	Help	Calling the VP-UML help file
	Close Print Preview	Close the print preview pane and return to the design area.

Table 2‑1 The Print Preview toolbar

You can use the Print command to select the printer. Set the range of pages and number of copies to be printed. The Print command is available once a project is open.

1.        Select the desired diagrams for printing. The selected diagrams will be shown at the preview area.

2.        Click on the Print button  on the Print Preview Toolbar. The Print dialog box appears.

3.        Select the printer to use, the page range and the number of copies to be printed.  You may click on the Properties… button to configure the printer-specific properties as well.

4.        Click OK to start printing.

Page Setup allows user to specify the page size, the orientation as well as the margins of the pages.

1.        Click on the Page Setup button  on the toolbar.  The Page Setup dialog box appears. 

2.        You can click on the Size pull-down box to select the paper size to use.

3.        You can select the orientation for the page(s) to be printed (either Portrait or Landscape) in the Orientation field.

4.        You can enter the value into the Left, Right, Top and Bottom text fields to adjust the size of the corresponding margin.

5.        Click OK to confirm the settings.

The Margins pane allows user to specify the margins of the pages, header and footer.

1.        Click on the Adjust Margins button  on the Toolbar.  The preview area shows the margin setting page.

2.        You can edit the margins sizes by entering the sizes into the text fields.  Alternatively, click on the spinner buttons to increase/decrease the margin sizes.

3.        Click the Finish Adjust Margin button  when you have finished configuring the margin settings.  The margin sizes will then be updated.

Diagrams can be zoomed in or zoomed out according to user preference.

1.        Click on the Zoom pull-down box to select the desired zoom ratio.

2.        The preview area will show the diagrams in the zoom ratio that you have selected.

There are two layouts that you can select for the print preview, the Paper Base Layout and the Diagram Base Layout.

If the Fit to Pages option is selected, and there are multiple pages in the printout, selecting Paper Base Layout will cause the distribution of pages to be paper-oriented (the diagram size is ignored in arranging the preview); while selecting Diagram Base Layout will cause the distribution of pages to be diagram-oriented.

Note that this option affects the preview only; the order of the printout remains unchanged

To select a layout of the preview:

1.        Click on the Paper Base Layout button  or Diagram Base Layout button  on the toolbar, a popup menu appears where you can select the layout to use.

The preview after applying the Paper Base Layout:

The preview after applying the Diagram Base Layout:

You can select the paper place style to change the order of the printout. To select the paper place style click on the Paper Place Style button on the toolbar. A popup menu appears where you can select a paper place style.

Consider a large diagram is divided into many pages, selecting From left to right will arrange the printout order from the pages on the left to the pages on the right, while selecting From top to bottom will arrange the print order from the pages on the top to the pages on the bottom

The order of the printout after selecting From left to right.

Fit to Ratio is used to resize the diagrams in the printout to a specific ratio.

Click on the Fit to pull-down box and select Ratio.

You can enter the ratio into the textbox.  For example, enter 150 to set the ratio to 150%. After the have edited the ratio, the diagrams in the printout will be resized to the new ratio.

Fit to Pages is used to split the diagram to desired number of pages when printing.

1.        Click on the Fit to pull-down box and select Pages.

2.        Click on the Multiple Pages button  on the toolbar. The page selector appears.

3.        Click on the row-column combination to select it (note that you can click and drag on the page selector to extend the selection). The diagram will be split into multiple pages by the rows and columns that you have selected.

Overlapping is used when users want the diagrams to have overlapping at the boundaries between pages. This is particularly useful when you have a large diagram that span multiple pages and you want to stick the pages of the printout together; the overlapping area can then be used as a hint when sticking the pages.

 

 

1.        Click on the Overlapping textbox to input the overlapping percentage and press the Enter key.

2.        The printing area near the boundaries of the pages will be duplicated by the overlapping percentage inputted.

  

Clip marks act as an indication of the boundary of a page. To show clip marks on the printout click on the Show Clip Marks on Page button . You will see the boundaries of the pages are surrounded by clip marks. To hide the clip marks click on the Hide Clip Marks on Page button  again.

To edit the header/footer of the printout click on the Edit Header/Footer button  on the toolbar. You will then switch to the edit header/footer pane.

You can edit the header and the footer in the Header panel and the Footer panel respectively. Each of the panel consists of the Left Section, Center Section and the Right Section, which represents the position that the content will be located in the header/footer.

There is a toolbar between the Header panel and the Footer panel, which facilitates the editing of header/footer. The description of the buttons in the toolbar can be found in the following table:

Icon	Name	Description
	Select Font	Select the font to use for the selected section. Note that you must click on the section once in order to select it
	Insert Page Number	Insert the page number in the selected section
	Insert Number of Page	Insert the total number of pages in the selected section
	Insert Date	Insert the date that the printing starts in the selected section
	Insert Time	Insert the time that the printing starts in the selected section
	Insert File Name	Insert the file name of the VP-UML project in the selected section
	Insert Diagram Name	Insert the diagram name in the selected section

Table 2‑2 The header/footer toolbar

After you have finished editing the header/footer click on the Close Edit Header/Footer button  to switch to the print preview mode. A sample page that has the header and footer formatted is shown in the picture below:

The Multiple Page Mode allows users to configure how the diagrams should be distributes in multiple pages. To switch to the Multiple Page Mode click on the Multiple Page Mode button  on the toolbar.

Click on the button beside the Multiple Pages field will invoke the page selector, where you can select the row-column combination for the printout. Alternatively, you can type in the Row and Column text field directly.

Click on the button beside the Page Style field to change the printout order. Consider a large diagram is divided into many pages, selecting From left to right will arrange the printout order from the pages on the left to the pages on the right, while selecting From top to bottom will arrange the print order from the pages on the top to the pages on the bottom.

After you have finished configuring the multiple page settings click on the Close Multiple Page Mode button to close the Multiple Page Mode.