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printing_and_export
Getting a drawing out of QElectroTech goes down one of three paths, and they are not the same code with different buttons — they have different options and different defaults.
| You want | Use | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Paper, or a PDF | Fichier → Imprimer (File → Print), or Fichier → Exporter en pdf (File → Export in pdf) | the same window, with the output format switched |
| PNG, JPEG, BMP, SVG or DXF | Fichier → Exporter (File → Export) | a per-sheet dialog with its own size controls |
| The same thing from a script |
qelectrotech --export-pdf / --export-png / --export-svg / --export-dxf
|
see CLI reference |
Fichier → Exporter en pdf (File → Export in pdf) opens the print window with the output format set to PDF. Everything below applies to both.
You get a sheet list (Folios à imprimer, Sheets to print) with Tout cocher / Tout décocher (Check all / Uncheck all), a live preview, and these options:
| Option | Default | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Adapter le folio à la page (Fit sheet to page) | on | scale each sheet to the paper. Turn it off to print at true size, which may span several sheets |
| Utiliser toute la feuille (Use the whole page) | off | ignore the printer's unprintable margin and use the whole sheet. Only do this if the printer really can |
| Dessiner le cadre (Draw the border) | on | the frame with row and column headers |
| Dessiner le cartouche (Draw the title block) | on | the title block |
| Conserver les couleurs des conducteurs (Keep conductors colors) | on | print wires in their colours rather than black |
| Dessiner les bornes (Draw terminals) | off | the small terminal marks on elements |
| Dessiner les noms des bornes (Draw the names of the terminals) | off | their labels |
| Inscrire les informations des composants (Enter the component details) | off | PDF only — see below |
There is deliberately no grid option here: the editor grid is never printed.
Above the sheet list is a date filter. It does not filter the printout; it ticks and unticks the sheet list for you, using each sheet's title-block date:
| Choice | Ticks |
|---|---|
| Toutes les dates (All dates) | every sheet |
| À partir de la date du (From the date of) | sheets dated on or after the date you pick |
| À la date du (In date of) | sheets dated exactly that date |
That makes "print everything revised since the 3rd" one click rather than forty. You can still tick and untick by hand afterwards.
Settings are remembered under print/default/…, separately from the image
export's — changing one does not change the other.
- Cross-references become clickable. Cross-references and sheet reports are turned into internal hyperlinks, so clicking a reference in the PDF jumps to the sheet it points at. This happens automatically, on both the GUI and the command-line path — nothing to switch on.
- Component information can be attached as pop-up annotations. Tick Inscrire les informations des composants (Enter the component details; only shown when the output is a PDF) and each element's information fields are attached to it as a PDF annotation a reader can open. Sheet reports and slave elements are skipped.
Exporting the same project twice used to give two PDFs that differed, even though every page looked the same: the files carried the time of the export and a random document id, and the clickable cross-reference links were written in a different order each run. That gets in the way when PDFs are kept under version control, compared to find out what changed, or built automatically.
-
Link order is now fixed, in the print window's PDF and in
--export-pdfalike: the links are the same as before, written in a fixed order (PR #1255). -
With the
SOURCE_DATE_EPOCHenvironment variable set,--export-pdfwrites the same file, byte for byte, for the same project. The variable is the standard one from reproducible-builds.org: a number of seconds since 1 January 1970, UTC. The PDF's creation and modification dates become that time, and its document id is worked out from the pages themselves, so the same pages give the same id even when the project was generated again from the same data, and wherever the file is written.SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH=$(git log -1 --format=%ct) \ qelectrotech --export-pdf project.qet project.pdfA value that is not a whole number of seconds is reported and ignored. Without the variable nothing changes: the PDF carries the time of the export.
Only the command line reads it. A PDF made by hand from the print window always carries the real date, which is what a person exporting by hand wants.
This came in over three changes in early October 2026 (#1257, #1286, #1317). With a build older than the last of them, two exports can still differ.
--export-pdf sizes each page of the PDF to its sheet, so a project mixing A4
and A3 sheets gives a PDF with A4 and A3 pages. A sheet within 3 points of a
standard paper size gets exactly that paper size, in either orientation: an A3
landscape sheet is an A3 landscape page. (Until
PR #1249,
merged 2 October 2026, only upright sheets were matched, and a landscape A3
sheet came out as a page slightly off A3: 1190 × 841 points instead of
1191 × 842.)
Fichier → Exporter (File → Export) is a different dialog: one row per sheet, each with its own file name, width × height, a keep ratio toggle, a reset size button, a preview, and a copy to clipboard button. Plus select all / deselect all.
Formats:
| Format | Notes |
|---|---|
| PNG | lossless raster, the usual choice |
| JPEG | lossy; poor for line drawings |
| Bitmap | uncompressed raster |
| SVG | vector — scales without loss, and can have a transparent background |
| DXF | vector for CAD exchange — see DXF import & export |
These are in the dialog's Options de rendu (Rendering options) box, and their out-of-the-box values are:
| Option | Default | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Exporter entièrement le folio / Exporter seulement les éléments (Export the whole sheet / Export elements only) | whole sheet | the sheet with its border and title block, or only the drawing, cropped to its content |
| Dessiner la grille (Draw the grid) | off | |
| Dessiner le cadre (Draw the border) | on | |
| Dessiner le cartouche (Draw the title block) | on | |
| Dessiner les bornes (Draw terminals) | off | |
| Dessiner les noms des bornes (Draw the names of the terminals) | off | |
| SVG: fond transparent (SVG-background transparent) | off | SVG only |
| Conserver les couleurs des conducteurs (Keep conductors colors) | on | off renders wires in black |
| DXF : symboles en blocs (DXF: symbols as blocks) | off | DXF only — see DXF |
| DXF : textes des symboles en attributs (DXF: symbol texts as attributes) | off | DXF only, needs the option above — see DXF |
The two DXF labels are not translated yet and show in French in the English interface too.
Remembered under export/default/…. The destination folder defaults to your
documents folder, and falls back to it if the saved folder no longer exists.
Guides are not an option.
draw_guidesexists as a stored property and is written to your settings, but no dialog offers it and the print path forces it off. Guides never reach an export.
| Situation | Path |
|---|---|
| Sending a schematic to someone | PDF — it keeps the clickable cross-references |
| Putting a sheet in a document or an email | PNG at a chosen size |
| Handing a drawing to another CAD tool | SVG or DXF |
| A sheet for the web, over a coloured background | SVG with a transparent background |
| The same export every week | the command line — see CLI reference |
| A PDF kept in version control, or compared with last week's |
--export-pdf with SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH set — see The same PDF every time
|
- The editor grid is never in the output. Grid and guides are off by default for image export and are not offered at all when printing.
- "Adapter le folio à la page" (Fit sheet to page) is on by default, so a printed sheet is scaled to the paper. If you need true scale, turn it off and expect more sheets.
- Elements-only area crops to the drawing, which is usually what you want for a figure in a document and never what you want for a drawing someone has to read on its own.
- Cross-references at the bottom of a sheet no longer print over each other. When cross-references are placed at the bottom of the sheet (Positionner : En bas de page, in the project's cross-reference properties), two coils in one column used to draw their references on the same spot, which then printed as an unreadable overlap. Where the texts would overlap, the higher element's reference now goes above the other; the checkbox Empiler les références dont les textes se chevauchent (stack references whose texts overlap, on by default) turns that off. See Linking elements.
- Print settings and image-export settings are separate. Setting up one does not set up the other.
- SVG transparency only applies to SVG. Ticking it for a PNG does nothing.
- The sheet background colour is screen-only for printing. The background chosen with the Couleur de fond du folio button on the Affichage toolbar is used by Fichier → Exporter (File → Export), which exports what you see, but printing and PDF always use white, and so do command-line exports.
- CLI reference — the same exports from a script, plus the CSV ones (parts list, wiring list, nets)
- DXF import & export — two unrelated features sharing a format
- Building a nomenclature query — parts lists and summaries, which are built as tables rather than exported as pictures
- Conductors — the colour options the exports honour
- User manual — the walkthrough
