?

We have been advised by our partner to use the free Beta DraftSight software as used by them and approved of by their IT manager to produce electrical drawings for a new project of theirs and have so far drawn up some 25 sheets of A4.

We have downloaded DraftSight separately on to a desktop and a laptop computer, both running Windows XP, and have been able to produce reasonably good drawings with reasonable effort. However, in both cases we have tried printing them out using a Canon MX310 USB printer, but with both computers we are having a problem in the scale of the printed drawing; we have also used an Epson C70+ parallel port printer but with the same result.

Considerable time has now been invested in drawing but it is becoming an increasing concern that we are experiencing a critical problem in not being able to obtain meaningful print outs on A4 sheets.

Through print pre-view we have adjusted the necessary settings to fit the drawing to A4 paper, and the drawing on screen appears to fill the page. When the preview is set ok the drawing is outlined with a green line, coincident with the 297 x 210 mm outline. However the drawing produced on the printed sheet is the size of a postage stamp in the top left hand corner. The DraftSight application (not the computers) is also prone to crash at the point of printing out, generating a DraftSight error message and the need to close the application. We have no print scale problems in any other applications on both computers with these prestige printers.

We also found difficulty in registering on the DraftSight website which apparently could give us access to online support.

Can you advise, and help please, is it a problem with the drivers? We have spent a disproportionate amount of time in trying to solve this problem. Your local representative would be welcome to visit and report back to you if this would help the situation.