On most printers, the printable area is smaller than the paper size. Illustration documents are sized to the printable area, so illustrations will fit on the paper without being scaled. You should note that the printable area on many printers is not centered exactly on the paper. Canvas takes scaling into account when it sets the document dimen- sions and you specify a scaling factor in the Page Setup dialog box. If you specify 50% scaling, for example, the document size will be twice the page size (or twice the printable area size in an Illustration). When From Printer is selected, Canvas checks the Page Setup infor- mation each time you open the document. If necessary, it adjusts the document’s dimensions to match the page information. Setting up rulers and the drawing scale You can set up rulers for a document using various units of measure and display the rulers at the top and left of the document window. Rulers help you track the pointer’s movement and let you create alignment guides in the layout area. When you set up rulers, you also set the document’s drawing scale. Canvas bases the rulers and all object measurements on the drawing scale. For example, if you set the drawing scale to 1 inch = 1 foot, and draw a line 1 inch long on screen, Canvas displays the line’s length as 1 foot. Canvas uses scale measurements in the Object Specs palette, the information area of the Status bar, and in dimension objects. You can use inches, points, centimeters, and picas as a document’s base unit of measurement. For the drawing scale, you can relate the base unit to inches, feet, miles, picas, pixels, metric units, and your own custom units. Tip To see or hide the printable area, you can use the Display > Show/Hide Printable Area command in the Layout menu. Canvas indicates the printable area by a solid line around the border of the page.
Canvas 8 Help: Document setup (7 of 12)                                                             Page #125