Line thickness

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Mikerosen
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Line thickness

Post by Mikerosen »

In the past, the printed line thickness was (sort of) like the on screen view. I just printed a doc, and the line is very fine: too fine, IMO.

Did I change a setting somewhere?
Mike Rosen
Seattle, WA, USA

Mac OS Ventura 13.1, iOS 11.4.1 on iPad Pro
Eric Pousse
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Location: Tours - France

Re: Line thickness

Post by Eric Pousse »

Bonjour Mike,

It is probably because you have chosen to not zoom the line thickness and when you print the drawing is zoomed (72 dpi -> 300 dpi or more).
Eric Pousse
Mikerosen
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Re: Line thickness

Post by Mikerosen »

Where is that setting, please?
Mike Rosen
Seattle, WA, USA

Mac OS Ventura 13.1, iOS 11.4.1 on iPad Pro
debenriver
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Re: Line thickness

Post by debenriver »

Preferences >> General >> Zoom path width.

Check it and the path width is magnified when you zoom and should print true to size.

Leave it un-checked and the path width does not get apparently bigger as you zoom, but may tend to print very thin.

Cheers!

George
Mikerosen
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Re: Line thickness

Post by Mikerosen »

I saw that, and wasn't sure what it meant. It implies (to me, at least) that if you resize the drawing, the line will resize the same way.

Maybe it should say "maintain line thickness when resizing."

Thanks, as always.
Mike Rosen
Seattle, WA, USA

Mac OS Ventura 13.1, iOS 11.4.1 on iPad Pro
debenriver
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Re: Line thickness

Post by debenriver »

Hi Mike

Eric added the "Zoom path width" function at your request. It is to do with zoom (magnification) not scale or resize.

Originally and correctly if you selected a line width (say 0.5 point) it stayed at that width whatever your zoom – so as you magnified the drawing it appeared to get thicker. In reality it wasn't getting thicker – just looked as if it was because you are magnifying it. And of course it printed at roughly 0.5 point because it was 0.5 point.

You asked him to add the facility to have the line stay the same apparent width whatever the zoom (however much you magnify it) – so in reality the line has to get thinner as you zoom to continue to look the same apparent width on the screen. If you then print the line may be very thin.

The actual thickness of lines when you print will also depend to some extent on your printer settings because points, pixels and dpi don't all correspond because they come from different historical developments. But with "Zoom path width" selected and with normal printer settings, the lines should print out reasonably the same thickness on the printer as they look on the screen at 100% magnification.

Zoom is not anything to do with Scale or Resize.

Scale is simply the relationship between your drawn objects and their real-life size (so you may be drawing something a 1/12th of it's real size).

Resize actually makes a drawn object bigger or smaller, but the scale remains the size. So if you resize by *2 an object that is 12" long it will be 24" long but still at the same scale.

Zoom (magnification) merely magnifies (or minifies) an object on the screen so it looks bigger or smaller to your eye – so with magnification you can see it more clearly, work on detail etc. and with minification you can, for example, see the whole drawing. It does not alter either the scale or the drawn size of the object.

What I am trying to say at some length is that "Zoom path width" is a correct nomenclature! :D

Cheers - George
Mikerosen
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Re: Line thickness

Post by Mikerosen »

OK, I'm having trouble wrapping my head around it, but I'll keep at it. I'm still thinking in terms of DB, where if I set the line thickness at .010 inches, it stayed there, no matter the zoom, scale, or print.

Thanks for helping!
Mike Rosen
Seattle, WA, USA

Mac OS Ventura 13.1, iOS 11.4.1 on iPad Pro
Eric Pousse
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Re: Line thickness

Post by Eric Pousse »

I don't know if it is "normal" that the line thickness has to be affected when the drawing is printed.

What do you think about that?
This option should affect :
- only the display on the screen?
- also the printing?
Eric Pousse
Mikerosen
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Re: Line thickness

Post by Mikerosen »

In my opinion, the line thickness should remain a constant. I just can't see any circumstance where I would want it to change, either on screen at any view or scale, or when printing. After all, you wouldn't change pencil lead thickness, would you?

If I misled you as to what I wanted, I truly apologize!
Mike Rosen
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Mac OS Ventura 13.1, iOS 11.4.1 on iPad Pro
debenriver
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Re: Line thickness

Post by debenriver »

I'm not really fussed about line thickness on the screen increasing with zoom – to me it's natural that as you magnify things, they look bigger.

But I quite like the new situation (in RC) that a thin line stays thin on the screen when you zoom – so I normally have "Zoom path width" deselected.

I think that for screen use the "Zoom path width" should stay like it is, so that you can select to have it look bigger under magnification, or not, as you choose.

When it comes to printing, then I think the line thickness should as far as possible print out at roughly the same line thickness, whether "Zoom path width" is selected or not. So, in effect "Zoom path width" does not affect printing.

Of course it is a bit academic because screens don't know anything about points or inches – they only know about pixels. And printers don't know anything about pixels – they only know points or dots per inch. So the whole thing has to be a bit of a fudge anyway.

When Apple developed the original Graphical User Interface they designed their screen resolution to be 72 pixels per inch so that 1 pixel equaled 1 point (also 1/72nd of an inch). Hence WYSIWYG. So text on the screen looked exactly like text on the printed page. This matched the accompanying ImageWriter printer, which printed at 144 dpi – so each pixel was represented by exactly two dots.

Nowadays screen resolution is of the order of 130 pixels per inch and a 72 pixel per inch screen looks coarse and grainy – so the whole thing is a bit of history that we are still hung up on!
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