.png)
The print Menu from the top toolbar layout is shown below.
The print menu contains options to both print out a range of outputs including the design checks for any brief appended to a member, to print the frame geometry view from the graphics pane and also to set up the Project title and Job Reference which are used in the title page of the calculations.
Selecting the Project Title and Job Reference option opens the following dialogue box.
.png)
Input the required text in each of the inputs to fill in the title block for each calculation sheet.
The Print Current Screen Only option prints the design brief for the currently selected member. Selecting the Print Current Screen only opens the Print set-up and setting dialogue box, as shown below.
.png)
The print set-up allows the current design brief to be printed to either a currently set up printer (local or network) or to print to a pdf. To control which printer or pdf writer is selected, use the "Printer" drop down. To set the options to print to a printer or to a pdf, either the option can be selected by selecting the required option using the "Print TO" icons, or alternatively by selecting the output by the "Printer" drop down.
The settings for the printed output are controlled through the Edit inputs and through the Settings tab.
When printing either to a printer or to a pdf, to print a company logo, ensure that the "Print Logo" icon is selected. When selected, this icon will highlight in orange.
If the print to a printer option is selected, clicking on the printer icon at the bottom right hand side of the popup window will cause the results of the currently selected design brief to print a hard copy with the currently selected settings.
If the print to pdf option is selected, clicking on the print icon does not immediately create a pdf. However, it opens a pdf session, as noted by the text at the bottom left of the screen, and is indicated thus .png)
To create a PDF document from a pdf session, selected the drop arrow to the right of the small printer icon. This gives the option to Close the PDF Session, as indicated below.
.png)
Clicking on the Close PDF Session will open the Save As window, where the location to save the pdf document can be selected and a filename can be entered. Once the required location is selected and the filename added, clicking on the Save icon will create the pdf document.
The Print Geometry menu item allows for the printing of the current frame view in the graphics pane. Similar to the Print Current Screen Only, this allows the current frame graphics to be either printed to a printer or to a pdf file, with the pdf output option behaving as outlined above.
The Print Data file menu item allows the data for the current model to be customised and printed. This output option is the same as available within MasterFrame through the Report>View/Print frame data menu item.
On selecting the Print Data File item, the screen layout is as shown below.
.png)
The contents of the Data File can be customised through both the Display Options and Print Options areas. The information displayed updates dynamically to reflect the selected or de-selected options.
The selected information can be printed to either a printer or to a pdf, or, alternatively, the selected information can be exported to Word. The output options are selected in the Output Options area located at the bottom of the screen. The print options are as described above.
The Print Frame Data creates the data file based on the whole of the model. Therefore the information is not dependant on, or controlled by the view of the model selected or filtered to.
The View Tabular Analysis Output option allows the results of the model analysis to be viewed and/or printed, with print to either a printer, to a pdf or, alternatively allow the exporting of the analysis results to Word. This area is the same as accessed through Masterframe. For details on using this area, refer to the Results Chapter of the MasterFrame manual.
The Print Tabular Analysis Output area allows analysis results of the model to be printed to either a printer, to a pdf or exported to Word or Excel. This area is the same as found in Masterframe. For details on the use of this area, refer to the Results Chapter of the MasterFrame manual.
The View/Print Graphical Output option accesses the Graphical Analysis Output area of MasterFrame. This area allows the results of the MasterFrame analysis to be accessed and viewed from within the steel design module. This includes allowing the member diagrams and FE results areas to be viewed and also allows the graphical results to be exported to Word. For details on the use of the Graphical Output area, refer to the Results Chapter of the MasterFrame manual.
The Print Design Output option gives a range of options for controlling the output from multiple design briefs. This allows for specific briefs to be selected, or a range of briefs can be selected using auto-selection filters. The Print Design Output area also allows for the selection of detailed or summary outputs, which controls the level of detail contained in each printout.
On selecting the Print Design Output option, the screen layout is as shown below. The bottom pane now shows a list of the steel design briefs in the whole model, along with a range of brief selection and print options.
.png)
The information and level of detail in the output is controlled using the .png)
The Print One per Page option will print a single design brief per page.
The Print Visible Member Only in Summary List will only include the members current visible in the graphics pane when printing a summary of the design outputs. The members visible can be controlled using the standard MasterFrame viewing tools and filters. For further details on the use of these tools, refer to the MasterFrame manual.
The Print Critical Portion Only in List Summary will identify the critical portion of each member and print the results for this portion on each member of the model.
There are a number of methods to select which design briefs are printed. When a brief is selected, it will have a blue highlight in the box at the bottom left hand side of the screen.
Individual briefs can be selected by using the mouse and clicking on each individual brief in the list of briefs. Alternatively, a brief can be selected in the graphically view window. Each member selected will highlight in red in the graphics window as well as the brief title highlighting in blue. Holding the left mouse button will allow for multiple members to be selected by windowing around an area in the graphics window. This can be combined with the viewing filters to give control over which members are selected.
In addition to selecting design briefs or members graphically, there are also tools to automatically select briefs using the Auto Selection Filters area. These filters include the following options:
Visible Members Only - automatically selects the briefs for those members currently visible in the graphics window
Critical Portion Only - will only print the critical portion for each member
Critical from each section size (per Design Group) - picks the most critical member for each section size used in the model. Where design groups have been created in MasterFrame, this option will then pick the most critical member from each design group.
Only select above unity ratio - this will identify those members which have a utilisation ratio higher than the user input value.
Multiple options can be selected to further refine the selection of design briefs to be printed. Once the required selection has been made, click on the .png){kind=small}
icon.
In addition to these tools, the .png){kind=small}
icon will automatically select every steel design brief. The .png){kind=small}
option will clear any selection made.
Once the required design briefs have been highlighted, to select to print to a printer or pdf, click on the .png){kind=small}
icon. The icon will highlight in orange to indicate that it is the selected output mode. To set the output mode to export to Word, click on the .png){kind=small}
icon.
Once the output option has been selected, the type of output is then set by clicking on the .png)
.png)
On selecting the print to a printer option, this will open the Printer Setup dialogue box, where the printing to a printer or pdf options can be selected.
In the 2022+ version the Print Manager has a new layout.
.png)