Improvements To Paper Space

Former AutoCAD® users are very familiar with paper space, also known as "layouts": white sheets of "paper" located in layout tabs. In the past, when they turned to ZWCAD, they might have felt a bit of pain: "Where is my lovely paper space?"

Actually, paper space has always been available in ZWCAD, but silently as a blank, black sheet -- somewhat different from AutoCAD. And users had no choice but to create viewports on their own. Now, ZWCAD puts an end to their pain, for it has implemented its own paper space with viewports.

In ZWCAD 2009i, you can view the following elements in paper space:
1. Paper Background
2. Paper Shadow
3. Plot Area
4. Default Viewport

It certainly is good looking! However, I was used to the old black sheet. Fortunately, by following this procedure it is easy to change the background to any color you like:
1. Config > Display > Window elements > Color.
2. And then select the background color you want.
Thanks to these new features, you can see what you get -- provided you set the paper size correctly. That is, what is shown in paper space is what will be plotted, precisely.

About the Plot Area
The plotable area is marked with dashed lines, and is simply the frame that provides a border to the drawing when plotting. You could think of plot area as the virtual piece of paper on which you plot your drawing, with the margins cut off.
Most importantly, you can select the part of drawing to be plotted by the Layout option. This useful tool specifies the part of the drawing you wish to plot. The drawing can be enlarged or reduced in the plot area, as well as moved by paning. The parts of drawing shown in the plot area will be plotted by the printer.