Copy a Plotbox or Graphic View to the Clipboard
Use the Copy View to Clipboard command to copy a screen image of either:
- a plotbox's content or
- a graphc view's contents
to the clipboard so it can be pasted into another program, such as Trimble SketchUp LayOut or Microsoft® Word.
Note: Plotboxes are not included in copied images.
Prerequisites:
- Licensed module; See the Subscription Plans page. For a license matrix by command, see the License page in the TBC Community. Also see View and manage licensed features.
- Plotbox or active graphic view
To copy an image of a view or plotbox to the clipboard:
- Select a single plotbox or click in graphic view (or on its tab)
- Do one of the following:
- Select Copy View to Clipboard in CAD > Images.
- Right-click and select Copy View to Clipboard from the context menu (for plotbox only).
An image of the contents of the plotbox or view is available on the clipboard.
- Use any available paste functions to bring the image into Word, SketchUp LayOut, or another program.
Note: The image's background color will be either white, gray, or transparent when pasted, regardless of the background color of the graphic view in Trimble Business Center. The background color depends on whether transparency is supported in the other program. To ensure transparency, use the Capture Image command to create a .png image file that you can then paste into another program.
Scenarios:
- If you have more than one plotbox selected when you run the command, an image of the entire graphic view is copied to the clipboard.
- If you receive an error message that an image cannot be created with the current parameters, your plotbox is too large (the image size multiplied by the dots per inch (DPI) uses more graphics memory than is available). You can work around this by resizing your graphic view to match the plotbox and then copying the view's contents (instead of the plotbox's) to the clipboard:
- If needed, change the aspect ratio of the graphic view to match the plotbox.
- Select Zoom, and draw the zoom box just inside the plotbox.
- Deselect the plotbox and copy the graphic view's contents to the clipboard.
Note: Using this method, the resolution of the image will be lower than when copying a plotbox's contents to the clipboard.
Tip: You can also capture a lower-resolution image from a plotbox or view by typing a DPI value after the command name in the Command pane's Command box. Select a plotbox and type, for example, "copyviewtoclipboard 100" on the Command line. A 100 DPI image is copied to the clipboard. Since the default resolution for copied images is 300 DPI, always use a value < 300. Starting with 100 DPI is recommended.
