Free sketchup or sketchup pro?

Goggin

I'm in a similar mode-- trying to decide whether to go pro or not.

The big drawbacks of the free version for me are

Difficulty in printing large (11 x 17 or 24 x 36) copies of blueprints.
Exporting to .dwg format.

If I have to have those two features, is there any option other than going pro?

Thanks. This is my first post here. I've been using SketchUp for about 2 weeks now, and I just found this MB a few days ago. Lots of good info here!

Gaieus

Goggin,

First of all, welcome - though you found us in the middle of a move (so please, read the announcement right now).

As for your problems:

works the same in the Pro and the Free versions now. Really no difference.
Exporters are different. You need the Pro version to be able to export 3D models from (native) SU.

Goggin

@gaieus said:

Goggin,

First of all, welcome - though you found us in the middle of a move (so please, read the announcement right now).

Thanks. Which announcement are you referring to? The one in this forum? I read that.

@unknownuser said:

As for your problems:

works the same in the Pro and the Free versions now. Really no difference.

Interesting. I thought that pro allowed you to easily select the scale, but that the free version didn't. If I want to print to scale at 24 x 36 (say 1/4" = 1'), do I draw a border around the plans so that printing to that border produces the desired scale? Otherwise, how would the program know how to scale things?

My only printing experience so far has been limited (I assume) by the ability to print only what is viewed on the screen at the time. Maybe I'm missing something...?

Gaieus

In order to print to scale you have to make sure that

you use "parallel projection" (not perspective view - see in Camera menu)
set one of the "standard views" (also Camera menu - or from the toolbar)
in the Print dialogue uncheck the "Fit to page" checkbox and there you go; on the left you can set your scale.

Note that if your model cannot fit on a page by the set scale, you have an option in the very bottom left corner to print it on tiled sheets.

Goggin

@gaieus said:

In order to print to scale you have to make sure that

you use "parallel projection" (not perspective view - see in Camera menu)

set one of the "standard views" (also Camera menu - or from the toolbar)

in the Print dialogue uncheck the "Fit to page" checkbox and there you go; on the left you can set your scale.

Note that if your model cannot fit on a page by the set scale, you have an option in the very bottom left corner to print it on tiled sheets.

Thanks. I'll have to try that. From the SketchUp Help section on Printing, I read this to mean that you needed the pro version to print to scale:

@unknownuser said:

PROPrint Size
The Print Size section of the Print dialog box is used to adjust the physical size of your output.

Fit to Page: The Fit to Page option is used to size the model to fit on a single sheet of paper. This option must be disabled in to specify a different size or scale.

Page Size: The Page size fields are used to enter a custom page size for your output.

Scale: The Scale fields are used to scale your model for printing. The first measurement, labeled In the Model, is the measurement of the exported geometry. The second measurement, labeled In SketchUp, is the actual measurement of the object in real scale. For example, for a scale of 1/4" = 1', simply enter 1 inch In the Printout equals 4 feet In SketchUp.

Gaieus

Yes but that's because they forgot to update that after SU6 was released in which version this - and quite a lot of other things - were made available in the free version, too.

In my office I only have SU free (it's a machine others may have access too and the Pro license is mine not that of the office) so fortunately I can follow all the differences.

Goggin

@gaieus said:

In order to print to scale you have to make sure that

you use "parallel projection" (not perspective view - see in Camera menu)

set one of the "standard views" (also Camera menu - or from the toolbar)

in the Print dialogue uncheck the "Fit to page" checkbox and there you go; on the left you can set your scale.

Note that if your model cannot fit on a page by the set scale, you have an option in the very bottom left corner to print it on tiled sheets.

I tried to do this today, but there is nothing "on the left" of the "fit to page" dialog box. There is something to right of it called "use model extents", and it does have boxes for "scale", but they are not accessible in my copy of the SketchUp-- they appear in shadow, as something would be that is disabled.

The (unaccessible) boxes below "scale" say "in the printout" and "in SketchUp", and they have pulldown menus to set the scale. But again, they are disabled. I tried selected and deselecting everything on the page, but nothing activated those menus.

Gaieus

This is the print dialogue box. Note that in pictzre one the "fit to page" (where my cursor is) .is enabled thus everythimg else is disabled:

Here I disabled "fit to page" and the scale settings are immediately accessible:

Now I'm pretty sure it works the same in both SU6 Pro and SU6 Free versions. At work, I only have the free version installed so I am going in there soon and check again.

In SU5 this was not a feature of the free version yet.

Goggin

Yep, that's the same box I get, but the settings on the right are never enabled.

Is it possible that the problem is my printer, and that it won't support scaling? I may run over to Kinko's today and see what happens if I set this up on one their printers. Mine is pretty old.

BTW, how did you cut and paste the print dialog box into your post? I have no idea how one would do that...

Gaieus

@goggin said:

Yep, that's the same box I get, but the settings on the right are never enabled.

Is it possible that the problem is my printer, and that it won't support scaling? I may run over to Kinko's today and see what happens if I set this up on one their printers. Mine is pretty old.

The printer shouldn't matter actually. Are you sure you did steps 1 and 2 correctly? Say are you really in top view for instance?

@unknownuser said:

BTW, how did you cut and paste the print dialog box into your post? I have no idea how one would do that...

I have a nifty little freeware screenshot program "PrintScreen" you can download it here (the second box is for the freeware - the top, Professional version is to pay for).
Ypu can either set it to "print" the active window or - as in this case - I took a snapshot of the whole window and cropped the image.

Very handy tool in these forum worlds...

Goggin

@gaieus said:

The printer shouldn't matter actually. Are you sure you did steps 1 and 2 correctly? Say are you really in top view for instance?

:
Damn, I feel like an idiot now. I wasn't in "parallel projection". It works now. Thanks for your patience on this. I gotta pay more attention to all these details!!

Gaieus

Good you got it...

sorgesu

We can now add one more feature that does not come with the Free version: The Style Builder.