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
documents 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 pointers movement and let you create
alignment guides in the layout area.
When you set up rulers, you also set the documents 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 lines 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 documents
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.