Scaling office layout to full page

[Top Spin]

I need to create some office layouts. These are fairly simple offices
with 3-4 rooms. I would like to be able to scale them so that they are
as large as possible on the printed page (8.5 x 11) but with the same
scale for both X and Y.

Can someone give me the general steps to follow?

For example, one office is 26' 8" (320") x 28' 4" (340"). Since this
is more nearly square than the 8.5x11 page, I would like to scale the
whole drawing so that the shorter side (320") is scaled to 8" (40:1).
This will scale the longer side (340") to 8.5".

Is that the way to do it?

I assume I need to leave the page size at 8.5 x 11 and then set the
Drawing Scale to a Custom Scale (1in = 40in) in this case.

Is that the best approach?

Finally, what's the best way to place an "outside" wall on the drawing
showing the outside dimensions of the office space and within which I
can arrange the individual offices and comnponents?

Thanks

 

[Chris Roth [ Visio MVP ]]

Per your fit-to-page/scaling question, there are a couple of options.

1. Set the scale. As you've discovered. You can either do a little math, or
when you are in Page Setup > Drawing Scale, you can just fiddle with the
Custom Scale. Notice that below the custom scale text boxes, Visio
calculates the physical-world size of the paper. Your paper size isn't
changing, it's still 8.5 x 11, but you can see that it represents 850in x
1100in, or whatever, as you change the scale. (This is called "hacking" or
"a numerical solution" *wink*) So just dink with the scale until the page
size is big enough to encompass your office plan.

2. Resize the page to fit your drawing. At any appropriate scale, simply
draw your plan, then resize the page to "tightly fit". There's a command to
do this, but it will probably fit your drawing too tightly, leaving no
margins. I recommend instead, holding down the Ctrl key while mousing over
an edge of the page. Then you can click-drag the page to any size you want.
When you print, select Fit to 1 page across by 1 page down, and the
printing functionality will fit your drawing to the paper.

In both cases, you should put a scale shape on your page so that readers can
see what size represents what size. Go to the Annotations stencil and drop
the "Scale Symbol" onto the page. If you are printing "Fit to page", you
want something that shows physical size, not just 1:48, because when the
printing does a fit to page, the numbers are no longer true. But this is a
fine point. Perhaps you just want to show furniture layout, and no craftsmen
will be working from your drawing...

Walls:

Just use the "Exterior wall" shape. You can right-click it to set various
properties, including changing where the "center" line is, which side of
this line the wall sits on (outside or inside), etc. For instance, if you
take interior measurements of a room, then you want to draw the walls such
that the walls hang on the outside of the room outline. You don't want your
rooms to be "measurement - 2 x wall thickness" !!

--

Hope this helps,

Chris Roth
Visio MVP

 

[Top Spin]

Per your fit-to-page/scaling question, there are a couple of options.

1. Set the scale. As you've discovered. You can either do a little math, or
when you are in Page Setup > Drawing Scale, you can just fiddle with the
Custom Scale. Notice that below the custom scale text boxes, Visio
calculates the physical-world size of the paper. Your paper size isn't
changing, it's still 8.5 x 11, but you can see that it represents 850in x
1100in, or whatever, as you change the scale. (This is called "hacking" or
"a numerical solution" *wink*) So just dink with the scale until the page
size is big enough to encompass your office plan.

2. Resize the page to fit your drawing. At any appropriate scale, simply
draw your plan, then resize the page to "tightly fit". There's a command to
do this, but it will probably fit your drawing too tightly, leaving no
margins. I recommend instead, holding down the Ctrl key while mousing over
an edge of the page. Then you can click-drag the page to any size you want.
When you print, select Fit to 1 page across by 1 page down, and the
printing functionality will fit your drawing to the paper.

In both cases, you should put a scale shape on your page so that readers can
see what size represents what size. Go to the Annotations stencil and drop
the "Scale Symbol" onto the page. If you are printing "Fit to page", you
want something that shows physical size, not just 1:48, because when the
printing does a fit to page, the numbers are no longer true. But this is a
fine point. Perhaps you just want to show furniture layout, and no craftsmen
will be working from your drawing...

Walls:

Just use the "Exterior wall" shape. You can right-click it to set various
properties, including changing where the "center" line is, which side of
this line the wall sits on (outside or inside), etc. For instance, if you
take interior measurements of a room, then you want to draw the walls such
that the walls hang on the outside of the room outline. You don't want your
rooms to be "measurement - 2 x wall thickness" !!

Wow, thanks for the help. I will try what you suggest.

 

[Top Spin]

Walls:

Just use the "Exterior wall" shape. You can right-click it to set various
properties, including changing where the "center" line is, which side of
this line the wall sits on (outside or inside), etc. For instance, if you
take interior measurements of a room, then you want to draw the walls such
that the walls hang on the outside of the room outline. You don't want your
rooms to be "measurement - 2 x wall thickness" !!

Your help was excellent. I was able to get an adequate drawing of my
office.

Now I have a similar project and it involves getting the walls right.
I could use a bit more of your help.

We have a second floor balcony in our home. We want to enclose it to
make a sun room. We are negotiating with the city for permits. The
room will be quite narrow and we'd like to make it a but wider, if
possible.

An accurate drawing would help. On one end of the balcony, there are
some closets that overlap each other. I can't tell exactly where
everything is.

I would like to measure each closet and the walls and gradually build
up a floor plan. My question is how to align the walls?

My plan is to start in one room. Measure each wall. Place that wall on
a Visio drawing. Then measure around the corners to the next room and
keep adding until I have a floor plan. It's sort of an inside-out
approach.

I guess my question is how to align the walls. I guess it I make a
room wall "exterior" to that room, can it also be exterior to the
adjacant room?

I'm not sure if I'm making any sense.