@u5tabil said: @dave r said: Are you modeling everything in SketchUp? Or are you drawing the ducting in LayOut? One easy way to do it is to put a layer in between the layer the floorplan is on and the one the ducting is on. Draw a large rectangle on that in between layer and adjust its fill opacity to suit. I have the floor plan in sketchup, but the plan was to use layout to draw the ducting on top. How would I do what you recommended? Doing it entirely in sketchup instead then? I'd probably opt for the suggestion you made yourself! Drawings the electrial layout over the floor plan, whilst using Dave's recommendation of a semi transparent filled square over the SU view. Work in three layers so you can turn the transparent layer off whilst snapping to the SU view for your electrical work, turn that layer back on prior to exporting!

An easy workaround: Create a bold rectangular 'C' shaped object with the line tool. Fill this object with hatch and double-click the object to enable path editing to close the 'C'. Disable the object's stroke. Redraw all outlines to the object with a 'stroke' enabled and 'fill' disabled.

Pyscho, that's the one. Updating profile very soon. Soonly soon..

Since you are new to Layout it is worth mentioning you will want to keep your model references up to date. Best way to do so is through file references. [image: iOpy_BC55AE3A-7F74-4E1E-A056-759A43310DA9.jpeg]

I completely forgot about "Print to PDF"! It'll be interesting to see how that effects file size!

Ok, I get it Thanks

I find the references come anyway and are easy to snap without shift, In fact so many references--some of which I don't think I'll ever figure out, some arcane trig relationships I guess.

Yes I agree, but I find it peculiar that I cannot do such a basic thing inside of Layout. I just wanted to make a quick check on paper to see if my document layout made sense before exporting it to PDF. Guess I can't... Thanks anyway Dave R!

Dave and Brian, Thanks for the ideas and examples. I'll try them out! Peter

@pbacot said: I prefer that the lines are true to paper space, and don't care how they look "zoomed out" This means that where the visible dash occurs in relation to rest of the drawing on screen is exactly where it will be when exported or printed. I often adjust dash lines for clarity. pbacot, I apreciate your reply and not because I agree with you. Unfortunate more haven’t chimed in on this, would have been nice to have more of a consensus. Charlie

How about this trick .. The answer is in the 15 second of the gif. [image: CUdR_Test.gif]

Your option and Peter's fog are good options. A third would involve stacking viewports which are separate by a shape with a transparent color applied. The shape could be a rectangle or other appropriate shape but you wouldn't need to trace the visible lower area and so you wouldn't need to worry about the shape changing if you move objects in the foreground. I would use three layers for this with the background on the lowest layer, the rectangle on the middle layer and the foreground on the top layer.

Sorry about that I did not make that connection. That crash #1673 is related to a re-render of a SketchUp viewport so I will add this information to the issue. Just to be clear you received this error message with that crash?

I never tried exporting pdf from LO, or don't recall. I'd have to check the results. Consistent automatic naming of the files is helpful to me in the print process I described. One less thing to do (actually several actions), or to go wrong (e.g. when you have to go all the way back to SU file to correct a little thing and then get to your finished output again through LO, especially at deadline). Another thing was the slow print dialog in LO. Each time you choose to print a page it seems to have to re-render it. Just long enough to cause a little blip in your flow.

Hey TIG, thanks for responding so quickly. I've tried your suggestion but I get the same error message unfortunately.

Did you try unticking Preserve drawing origin in the import options?

No I didn't get a message that it was read only, which is the concerning part. It allowed me to open and proceed as if I had the only instance open.

Thanks!! Didn't realise I had auto save turned on in Layout (I've always had it disabled within Sketchup). Have now turned it off, as I prefer to manually save using a keyboard shortcut at specific points when I'm working.

Excellent! I'm glad it did work. I think you'll find that it's better to do the PDF exports and print them anyway. If you want to do large format prints, you can send the PDF to an office supply store or other firm that has large printers and you can send PDFs to clients directly and know what they should be seeing when they open your file.

Thanks Dave that's a good point. I need to update my templates anyway with the onset of the new EU data protection laws coming in.