MultiPage Workaround Help Please?

Question

Can anyone in this forum please help me with figuring out a work around for the following problems with my yEd Flowchart drawing software? First, there seems to be no way I can define a letter size (8.5"x11") page boundary on the grid. It would help a lot if this app had vertical and horizontal RULERS but they seem to be missing. The flowchart I am redrawing can not be made to fit on a single page because it prints out very small on a single page. Therefore, I need to break it up into multiple pages. I have tried the Settings> Poster Rows and Poster Coulmn settings but these settings are no help. They do not provide the amount of control I  need to correctly split up the flowchart across multiple pages. These Poster settings slice the flowchart with no concern about the flowchart continuation circles I have drawn.  I would tremendously appreciate any advice that will help me in somehow getting 100% control of how my flowchart prints accross multiple pages on a PDF. Because Poster Row and Columns is not the solution.

Answer 1

If you need "100% control of how your flowchart prints across multiple pages", you will have to print each page separately. For each page, adjust the viewport of yEd's editor area such that the elements for the current page are displayed and only the elements for the current page. Then print the page with "Clip Area" set to "View Only" on tab "General" in the print settings dialog. Using "File" -> "Print Preview" you should be able to verify if you have the viewport set up properly.

Comments

Thank you very much for your help Thomas. What you are suggesting is something I tested out while you were responding to my original post. The problem to this approach is I still feel as "blind as a bat" as it relates to laying out all of the elements so that they all fit on a letter size page and more importantly that the sizing across all of the pages are consistant. In other words, your suggestion works okay if you have a single page layout.  But what about if the layout has to be spread across multiple files since yEd does not support multiple pages within a single file? The problem I encounter is keeping matching layout sizing accross multiple files.

To help everyone out in this forum I will share the best work around I have been able to devise:

For the problem of yEd not supporting multiple pages my work around is to create separate files for each page. For example, I have four separate files named: Page 1, Page 2, Page 3 and Page 4.

For the problem of yEd not supporting viewable four sided page boundaries which will help all users tremendously in developing correctly sized layouts across multiple files I have tried two ideas. One was to use the PROCESS element and size it into a big rectangle to represent letter sized page boundaries. I removed the color fills and only left the black edges on. Much to my dissapointment the problem with this idea is the flowchart within the rectangle becomes unselectable because it resides within an element.

Then I tried making four separate thin lines out of rectangles and arranging them to represent all four edges of a letter sized page. This solved the selection problem but the problem now is they all show up in my paper print out. Also my XML code is contaminated with code I don't want which are the four page borders I rigged up.

Has anyone out there written a plugin that modifies yEd so one can see page boundaries? Or for that matter at least provide some vertical and horizontal rulers?

Any help in devising a work around that will enable one to see page boundaries will be greatly appreciated.