SIS supports the following standard printing commands: Print [File-Print], Print Preview [File-Print] and Print Setup [File-Print]. SIS can simply print what you see on screen, or, for more sophisticated output, you can use Print Template [File-Print Template] or Quick Print Template [File-Print Template]. Both of these commands use Print Templates.
SIS prints using standard Microsoft Windows printing methods and can therefore use any printer with a Microsoft Windows printer driver.
Unlike, for example word processors, SIS, when printing a Map View or 3D View will only ever print a single page. The map will either be scaled to fit onto the page, or cropped to fit. SIS will however print multiple pages when a Table View is printed.
Raster data, colour-filled vector boundaries, thickened lines and Microsoft Windows TrueType fonts are printed at the resolution of the printer being used. In particular, some printers do not support colour output, therefore raster data may not appear as expected.
By default, SIS queries the printer driver to find out whether or not the printer can handle colours. If the printer driver thinks that the printer cannot handle colours then SIS forces all printed colours to monochrome.
Sometimes the printer driver does not really know the capabilities of the printer. In this case you can use the Drawing and Printing tab of the Options dialog to force the colour or monochrome graphics when printing. You can use Print Preview [File-Print] to check the effects before printing.
SIS prints using standard Microsoft Windows printing methods, so should be able to use any printer with a Microsoft Windows printer driver. However some restrictions exist when printing Raster data, and Grid items in particular.
Many colour printers use Enhanced Metafile (EMF) format. This means that SIS just supplies the instructions for what to draw on the page, rather like a script, and the printer driver interprets the script.
Using Enhanced Metafiles can result in smaller print jobs. Typically however, the Metafile is low colour depth e.g. 4-bit, 16 colour, and SIS will not "dither" its output to the colour depth, but instead chooses the closest available colour in the colour palette of the printer.
This can lead to seemingly random colours appearing in Grid item cells. Other raster data, e.g. Bitmap items, will also print without being dithered, and so can look completely different to the screen. The effect is more pronounced for Grid items because each cell, or pixel, in the Grid is typically large on screen and on the print.
If this situation occurs then try changing the printer to accept RAW data instead of EMF data. This lets SIS do the rasterisation itself, which can then be dithered, resulting in improved output. A drawback however, is that the size of the print job will be increased.
Note: If you wish to print OpenStreetMap or Bing datasets, it is advisable to create the SWD using the WGS84.Pseudo Mercator Coordinate Reference System, i.e. add this layer to the SWD first.
If you create an SWD in OSGB, or other Coordinate Reference System, and then add the OpenStreetMap or Bing, you will need to set the Coordinate Reference System to the WGS84.Pseudo Mercator CRS or Popular Visualisation Mercator, before printing.
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