The first step for using the paper space tab properly is to adjust the settings. To access the settings, right-click on the desired layout tab and choose Page Setup Manager.... This will open the Page Setup Manager window, where you will find a list of all the layout tabs available in the drawing file, as in the following figure. You will find four options on the right, which are as follows:

• Set Current: This is used to change the current/active layout. You choose the desired layout tab from the list then click on Set Current.
• New...: This is used to create a new layout tab.
• Modify...: This is used to adjust or modify the settings for the current/active layout tab.
• Import...: This is used to import a saved file with previously saved layout tab settings.

The following figure shows the details of the Page Setup Manager window:

So, to adjust the paper space tab settings, click on Modify, which opens the Page Setup window. The Page Setup window is divided into a number of sections. Starting from the top left, you will find the section called Page setup, where you can quickly select a previous or a saved setup to use in your current layout tab. If there are no saved setups and this is the first tab that you modify, the settings will then display <None>, as in the following figure.

The next section is called Printer/plotter and this where you choose the printer or plotter you are planning to use for printing your drawing. You simply click on the button next to Name and it will open all the available printers or plotters that are connected directly to your PC, or through a network connection, to choose from. Notice that besides the printers and plotters, you will find other options, such as printing to a PDF file or printing to an image file.

After selecting the plotter or printer, go to the next section, where you select the paper size you are planning to use. Click on the button on the Paper size section and it will open all the available paper sizes that are compatible with the selected printer or plotter. The locations of the Printer/plotter selector and the Paper size section are shown here:

We have now set the printer and the paper size—the next step is to adjust the scaling factor. At the bottom, in the middle, you will find the Plot scale section, where you can set the units used in the layout tab and add a global scaling factor. For the units, you have two different options: inches or mm. Then, after that, you can set a global scaling factor for the layout. The lower number represents the units displayed in the layout tab and the upper number is for the objects inside the model, as shown here:

As mentioned earlier, the scaling factor is global for the Layout tab, so if you have created viewports with a given scale factor, the final scale on the printed paper will be a multiplication of these two scaling factors, so you should be careful when dealing with this scaling factor. A good practice is to set this scale factor to 1:1 and just rely on the scaling factor of the viewports.

Now that we have a properly adjusted layout tab, let's create the viewports that will display our model.