Is this a Mac specific issue or across both platforms? I'm having to stay with Layout 2016 because of this - irritating as I am paying a maintenance fee for a product that is unusable in its current form for me.

I'm still on 2016 and trialling 2018 now - it is noticeably slower zooming and less responsive, making for a jerky movement and difficulty in getting the right level of zoom. For me it is unusable - it gets in the way when it should be transparent - there is a lag as I start to zoom in or out which isn't there at all on 2016. A small movement on the zoom out drops it back to 70% which isn't what I want. I seem to recall this was the same with 2017, which was one of the reasons I didn't upgrade to that (and I'm paying the annual fee). I'm using an Apple Mighty Mouse and a high spec iMac.

Did you ever get to the bottom of this? I have a similar issue with Layout 2016 on a Mac - printing directly from Layout or an exported pdf of the same file shows coloured fills as half tones and the bounding boxes of fills reducing the quality of anything within them e.g. lines, text. On screen, the pdf is fine. I have found that if I open the pdf in Adobe Reader and print from that (rather than Apple's Preview) it prints fine, but that’s adding to the workflow.

Discovered that if I export as a 2D graphic (dwg) and then import that, it has got rid of all the rubbish. All of the layer controls have gone, but I don't need those anyway. This method has the added bonus of truly flattening the file as well.

Yes, I can turn them off, but they are connected to the drawing proper, which turns most of that off as well. Likewise, if I delete them, I delete most of the drawing. I guess I should have grouped at it you say, but I’ve done this a few times now and not had the problem before.

Its actually two dxf files laid over each other, which may have something to do with it - a proper topo survey set in a wider plan from UK Ordnance Survey.

I’m using a top view, parallel projection to work in 2D - looking at it from other angles, the file does appear to be flat (although I appreciate it may not be by a very small amount). The screenshots are top view.

When asking for dxf or dwg files from consultants, is there anything I should be specifying to minimise aggravation?

Can someone explain what these lines are and how to safely delete them please?! It's an imported dxf file which I am trying to draw over in a 2d plane. They are hidden but interfere with any line I draw by intersecting it. They're not on any layer from the imported file that I can see. I haven't come across this before in this work flow. I want to rotate the drawing, but that makes it even worse, because the hidden geometry stretches. Its driving me nuts!

I have a similar issue - Layout does not remember the Page Setup dialogue boxes at all. I have A3 landscape set as the default in Preferences, which works fine, but if I then open Page Setup, select my A3 printer and A3 paper, save and close the file, when I reopen it those settings have reverted back to the default. This can’t be the correct behaviour surely?

Update - I see that it uses the default printer settings from System Prefs - I have an A4 laser as the default. If I change that to my A3 laser, it shows the correct settings in Page Setup. That doesn’t excuse it as bad behaviour though, in my view.

SketchUp Pro 2016 - OS 10.11.6

I have a 2D problem with SUPro16 - my workflow is to produce 2D plans and sections in SU and send them to LO, set to vector, set to scale, explode and ungroup and then adjust line weights and styles, add text, dimensions etc. SU is set up top view, camera Parallel Projection, hidden line style. All worked fine in SUPro15 (using OS 10.8.5).

Having upgraded to El Capitan to use SUPro16, I now seem to have an issue with faces - they obscure guides and lines as they are drawn, once the line is drawn it becomes visible. Snaps, inference and feedback work, I just can’t see what I’m drawing! If I delete the face I can see the line, but then of course a new face is created as soon as I’ve drawn it. I’m endlessly having to delete faces to see what I’m doing. Anyone else have this issue or suggest a way to resolve it please?

As a secondary issue, once exploded in LO, fills now sit on top for some reason (obscuring their bounding lines) and I have to move them to the back manually, which is very tedious! Again, this didn’t occur in SU Pro 15. Any way to resolve?

@sdmitch said:

axys, just copy the spiral stairs using the Move Tool and a tap on the Ctrl key then right click on the copy and choose "Flip Along>Group's Red".

Got it - thanks again - I'm a rank amateur as you may have deduced ...

@sdmitch said:

axys, at present the angular increment for spiral stairs is fixed at 15 degrees. I will need to make that an option. for now, I have attached a spiral stair with 16 steps @ 22.5 degree increment and 800mm wide.

Tremendous! Thank you so much. Another useful option would be clockwise or anticlockwise - would it be too much to ask you to make this stair in the opposite direction for me? Thanks again.