Printing in SigmaStudio
Thread Summary
The user inquires about improving printing control in SigmaStudio, particularly for fitting schematic graphs with multiple hierarchy sheets onto a printer page. The support engineer acknowledges the issue, noting that significant improvements are planned for SigmaStudio+ due to the older version's limitations with newer Windows versions. A proposal for a documentation package utility in SigmaStudio+ to enhance printing and saving is suggested as a potential solution.AI Generated Content
Hi,
I am going to be boring and raise a perennial question, when are we going to get better printing control in SigmaStudio ?
I have searched and found many questions/threads on this subject, dating back as far as 2012, I even raised it myself back in 2022 but I cannot find any where were there is a satisfactory answer.
Basically, the problem is that it is very difficult to get the Schematic graph to fit into the defined printer page, even more so if there are multiple Hierarchy Sheets in the design.
Some people have reported shifting the elements into the top left of the Schematic worksheet but they still appear off the right of the page in the print preview.
It is very difficult to manipulate the Scale factor to try and fit it because it isn't interactive. For example I have just tried 75% and it took 10 seconds to produce the result and the result was off the bottom of the page so I tried 70%, waited another 10 seconds and now page 1 fits ok albeit skewed off to the right, but page 3 (there are 10 pages in total) has the top part of the design chopped off
I understand that this lack of print output doesn't stop anyone from designing a DSP system with SigmaStudio but I have always considered that producing decent documentation for designs is an important step, and one way to do this is to produce a good "printed" copy using a PDF printer with the PDF then being annotated.
I hope you will consider moving this option up the priority list for your engineers to work on, after all it has been over 2 years since we got revision 4.7
Kind regards
PhilipJ
software
4.7
sigmastudio
Hello PhilipJ,
I understand your frustration and you are certainly bringing up a valid point. In many ways you are preaching to the choir. If you have not noticed I am probably one of the biggest fans of SigmaStudio and take a personal stake in making it better. I suppose it is safe to mention at this point that the company is working to restructure our internal software support and so many changes are in the works. SigmaStudio+ is very much improved in a lot of ways in how it interacts with the operating system and with the screens. There are other issues but I will not get into that. We will be making changes in the coming months/years so either the functionality of SigmaStudio Rev4.7 will be drastically changed and improved or it will be retired and the functionality moved to another software platform like SS+ or other platform.
So I do not see any significant effort being done to improve the printing in this older version of SigmaStudio. The older graphical libraries used just do not interface well with the newer versions of Windows which is why we had to do a full re-write to produce SigmaStudio+.
This is a function I do not use very much. However, I do use an older schematic capture program on my personal MAC and I run into similar issues with printing and fitting things on the screen. What I usually do is print to a PDF that can be large. Then I will use a different program like Preview on my MAC to actually print it. Then I get a bit more flexibility and I also will do things like take screenshots.
I want to truly say thanks for bringing this up. We are in a process of defining things to change/fix/improve with SigmaStudio + and so I will write up a large request for developing a couple of things. First is an easy way to print but since the schematics in SS+ can be larger, I think a utility in a menu item for producing a documentation package output to print and also to save is a great idea. I will make that proposal so thanks for contributing to the effort. I am listening to you!
Dave T
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