Creating and Saving a LayOut Document

Choosing a Template

The first thing you will see when opening LayOut is the Welcome Window.

 

To create a new LayOut document you will need to choose a template. The most basic templates set your document's paper size and orientation. More complex templates include features like storyboards and titleblocks that appear on every page of your document. If you have specific design needs you can also create your own template.

The most common templates appear on the Home page. To view more template options click More templates. All template options appear listed under the following categories:

• Paper - Templates based on common paper sizes. Each paper size includes graph paper and plain paper options.
• Storyboard - Storyboard templates include preset boxes on each page for showing different angles, features, or views of a 3D model. You can choose from three different box widths.
• Titleblock - Choose from Contemporary, Modern, Rounded, Simple, Simple Serif, or Traditional Titleblock styles.
• My Templates - If you have created your own templates you'll also see a My Templates tab.

To continue working on a document you've already created, click Open file or browse the Recent Files section for the document you're looking for.

Document Setup

After you create a new document in LayOut, you may want to check and adjust your settings in the Document Setup dialog box. Each section of Document Setup contains options to help you configure your document.

Auto-Text

The Auto-Text section helps you manage all the available auto-text options for your document. For more information see Automating Title Block Text with Auto-Text Tags.

Grid

You can customize how the background grid appears when working on your document using the following options:

• Show Grid - The Show Grid option is selected by default if you chose a graph paper template for your document. You can choose to activate a grid on your document and if your grid appears as Lines or Points.
• Major Grid - The Major Grid is a grid with solid lines that appears on your document. You can adjust the visibility of the major grid, the grid spacing, and the color of the grid lines.
• Minor Grid - The Minor Grid is a grid with dotted lines that appears on your document. You can adjust the visibility of the minor grid, how many subdivisions appear, and the color of the grid lines.
• Options - Options to include your grid in the printed version of your document, clip the grid to the page margins, or draw the grid on top of other objects.

Groups

Groups are a way to keep related elements organized in the drawing area. The Groups tab in Document Setup provides an option to fade the rest of your document, or hide groups altogether. For more information on groups, see Grouping Entities.

Paper settings

The Paper settings provide options that can help configure a document area's size, orientation, margins, and color.

The Paper section contains the following options:

• Paper - Under Paper, you can adjust your document size and orientation including exact width and background color. The Print Paper Color option will print the color you choose for your
• Margins - The Margins area is where you can customize the display and size of your document's margins. By default, margin lines are hidden. Selecting the Margins checkbox tells LayOut to display them. You can enter values for the left, right, top, and bottom margins. You can also change the default color for the margin lines, and choose to print them by selecting the Print Margin Lines checkbox.

References

The References section helps you manage model references in your document, like an inserted SketchUp model. For more information see Managing Changes and Updates to SketchUp Files within LayOut.

Rendering

The Rendering section contains options controlling the resolution of Raster and Hybrid rendered SketchUp model viewports and images in your document.

• Display Resolution - The Display Resolution options allow you to set the resolution for the images and viewports in your document while you are working on it. You can choose between Low, Medium, and High. Display resolution is set to Medium by default.
• Output Resolution - The Output Resolution options set the resolution used for images and viewports when you print or export your document. You can choose between Low, Medium, and High. You can also choose Output Override to use raster viewports throughout a document and render Vector or Hybrid on export. Output Resolution is set to High by default and Output Override is selected as Hybrid.

Units

The Units settings affect what coordinate units you see in the Measurements box as you hover a tool around the document area. If you're looking to change dimension units, see Marking Dimensions.

Saving a LayOut document

Before you put too much work into a LayOut document, save it with a unique name and location. Saving a LayOut document is much like saving any other document, depending on your operating system.

Windows

1. If this is the first time saving your document, select File > Save or File > Save As. Either way, you see a Save LayOut Document dialog box, as shown in the following figure. If you've already saved your document once, selecting File > Save As enables you to save a copy of your LayOut document under a new name, and selecting File > Save simply saves your document without opening a dialog box.
2. Navigate to the location on your hard drive where you want to save the document.
3. In the File Name box, type a name for your document.
4. From the Save As Type drop-down list, leave LayOut Files (*.layout) selected to save in the most current .layout file format. If you need the file to be compatible with an earlier version of LayOut, select that version from the drop-down list.
   Warning: When you save a .layout file as a LayOut 2017 file, the file cannot be partially compatible with Layout 2016 and earlier. (Why? Because the persistent IDs that make label and dimension improvements possible don't exist in earlier versions.)
5. Click Save and your LayOut file is saved in the location you selected.

MacOS

1. If this is the first time saving your document, select File > Save or File > Save As. Either way, you see a save dialog box, as shown in the following figure. If you've already saved your document once, selecting File > Save As enables you to save a copy of your LayOut document under a new name, and selecting File > Save simply saves your document without opening a dialog box.
2. Navigate to the location on your hard drive where you want to save the document.
3. In the Save As box, type a name for your document.
4. From the File Format drop-down list, leave LayOut Document selected to save in the most current .layout file format. If you need the file to be compatible with an earlier version of LayOut, select that version from the drop-down list.Warning: When you save a .layout file as a LayOut 2017 file, the file cannot be partially compatible with Layout 2016 and earlier. (Why? Because the persistent IDs that make label and dimension improvements possible don't exist in earlier versions.)
5. Click Save and your LayOut file is saved in the location you selected.

The File menu also has commands for saving templates and scrapbooks. For details about saving templates, see Creating Templates. For an introduction to saving scrapbooks, check out Working with Scrapbooks of Reusable Entities.