Print Preview

Print Preview allows you to view the selected map view as it will be presented when sent to a printer or to an image file as described in the Save as Image and Image setup section. The size of the image seen on the computer monitor is dependent on the computer display settings and is not necessarily how the map will look on a printed sheet. Select File>Print Preview or click the Print Preview button [icon] from the toolbar and you will see a new window showing your map as it will appear once printed.

If the map legend is visible, it will also be shown in its final location along the right-hand edge of the map. The print preview feature is very useful in setting the scale and position of features on your map so that the printed version will appear exactly as you wish.

Print Preview Mode

The Print Preview Mode is a special mode designed to make it easier to print your documents. Choose this mode from the File menu, or click on the Print Preview Mode button [icon] from the toolbar. The screen will then turn gray, with a white area in the middle of the screen. This white area represents the printable area, based on your chosen printer and print setup. You can zoom and pan the map as necessary to center what you want printed in the white area. Clicking on the Show Legend button in the button bar will show the printable area remaining after including the legend. You can change the width of the legend by grabbing the edge of the legend window and dragging or by going to the Map Menu and choosing Legend Options from the Legend entry under the Map menu. As you change the width of the legend window, you’ll see the white area width update with your changes.

Printing Your Map

EDX software uses the standard Windows printing features. In order to print a particular map view, you must first select the map view you would like to print by clicking on the title bar of that view or by double-clicking the name of that map view in the project directory.

Next, select File>Print, click on the Print button [icon] from the toolbar, or enter Control+P on your keyboard and the Print dialog box will appear. Using the selections on this dialog box, you can choose which of your installed printers to use, and start the printing process. While printing, a message box will appear reporting the status of the printing operation. When this box disappears, you can return to working on your study map.

Print Setup

To set up the paper size and orientation of your printed map, select File>Print setup. A dialog box will be presented in which you can select the paper size and orientation for your map. The paper sizes that are available for selection on the Print setup dialog box will depend on the capabilities of your currently selected printer.

The Orientation selection should normally be set to Landscape since this corresponds to the screen view and because most maps are printed with the x or east-west dimension larger than the y or north-south dimension. For some special circumstances you may want to select Portrait orientation. An important example is making an E size plot on a large format printer such as an HP 650C. For A through D size plots, the Landscape option is appropriate. For E size plots you must select Portrait otherwise part of the map may be clipped off.

When you are finished making changes in this dialog box, select OK and the map will be re-drawn to reflect any changes you might have made in the map size. If you select Cancel the map will not be re-drawn.

Print Advanced Options

When printing a large size plot (DIN A1/A0 or D/E-size), especially when printing very detailed map layers, it can often require higher memory requirements in the software. In general a print area is broken up into "tiles" for better use of memory. The Advanced Print Options dialog allows the user to tailor the printing process so these larger print jobs are better managed. We recommend keeping the default settings whether you are doing a large or small print job. Only make changes if you begin to run into printing problems. This feature has the following dialog options:

Maximum Memory: Defines how many megabytes to use when printing or creating the tiles. A larger number will produce more optimal results (quicker and better printing), but it will use significant segments of video and printer memory to work. Modern, high performance computers using good print/PDF drivers should start out with a setting of at least 20.

Maximum Tile Count: There are three settings: (2) “slow” setting using 1,4 or 9 tiles will take the longest to print, but is the least taxing on resources. (3) “fastest” uses only 1 tile to render the entire print area, which will tax video and printer memory, but is likely to work if a well-equipped computer and printer/plotter are used. (4) “low quality” setting uses legacy printing code and uses only 32 MB of memory which is useful for debugging some plotting problems. The speed of printing is exponentially related to the Maximum tile count setting.

Tile Margin: This parameter is for how much of an overlap to have between tiles. Some overlap is required or you may run into problems if an item (label, site, CPE, etc.) lands exactly on the line between two tiles. Having a margin gives the tiles some overlap and prevents these items from possibly not getting drawn or only getting partially drawn.

Page Setup

This is a standard Microsoft Windows dialog box. It duplicates functions on the Print and Print Setup menus. It is recommended you make no changes here, and use the other dialog boxes instead.