Document Setup
After you create a new document in LayOut, you may want to check and adjust your settings in Document Setup. Each section of Document Setup contains options to help you configure your document. To open Document Setup, click Window > Document Setup.
Tip: If you want to use the same document setup options again, you can save them as a custom template. For more information, see Creating a Template in LayOut.
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, using the following options:
Show Grid – Selected by default for documents that use a graph paper template. You can choose a Grid Type between Lines or Points.
Major Grid – Appears as a grid with solid lines on documents. You can adjust the visibility of the major grid, grid spacing, and the grid line color.
Minor Grid – Appears as a grid with dotted lines on documents. You can adjust the visibility of the minor grid, how many subdivisions appear, and the grid line color.
Options – Includes the grid in the printed version of documents, clips it to page margins, and displays the grid on top of page objects.
Groups
Groups organize related elements in the drawing area, allowing you to select, move, copy, and scale multiple entities as a single unit. For more information on groups, see Grouping Entities.
When editing a Group or Scaled Drawing, you can control how entities outside of these drawing contexts appear while you work, using the following settings:
Fade rest of document – Adjusts the opacity of entities contained outside of the Group or Scaled Drawing.
Hide – Hides entities contained outside of the Group or Scaled Drawing.
Note: Scaled drawings are basically Groups with a scale applied. Updating options for a specific drawing in the Scaled Drawing panel applies those changes to the default settings in this section, affecting all future Group or Scaled Drawing edits. For more information about scaled drawings, see Creating a Scaled Drawing.
Paper
The Paper options configure document size, orientation, margins, and color.
Note: Page width and height affect the aspect ratio for any images you export from LayOut pages.
For best results, select a paper size that matches your document's dimensions.
The Paper section contains the following options:
Paper – You can use the Paper settings to adjust document size, orientation, and specify a background color if you have the Print Paper Color option selected.
Margins – The Margins settings let you customize your document layout and control guide line visibility. Select the Margins check box to display margin lines on the canvas, which are hidden by default. Enter your preferred margin values in the Left, Right, Top, and Bottom fields. To customize appearance or output, select a new default color for the margin lines. Selecting Print Margin Lines includes them when printing your document.
If you plan to print your LayOut document, you can simplify the printing process by choosing the same size paper on which you plan to print.
References
You can manage files that your documents reference like SketchUp models, images, spreadsheets, and other imported files. For more information, see Managing Changes and Updates to SketchUp Files within LayOut.
Rendering
The Rendering section options control 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.
Note: The Output Override (for raster rendered viewports only) is set on by default. This setting will override how your viewports are rendered on the page to the chosen setting when exporting. Disable this option if you intend on exporting or printing your SketchUp viewports as Raster rendered.
Units
The Units settings affect the coordinate units you see in the Measurements box when manipulating entities in your document. For information on how to change dimension units, see Marking Dimensions.