I need to produce a rough rendering of a floor plan of my building that--once complete--I hand over to an architect to go to the next level. I'm willing to invest in a wide-format printer to get a nice size printout, something I'm going to have to reprint over and over as the layout is developed.

My building is 160 ft x 320 ft. If I use a drawing scale of 1/4" = 1 ft., I'm looking at a 40" x 80" diagram; not possible, I don't have the room for a printer that can produce that size of a print.

If I use a scale of 1/8" = 1 ft., I'm looking at a 20" by 40" diagram. Never having used a wide format roll paper printer, my question is this: Can I use a roll paper wide format printer that prints on 24" paper to print the full size of this diagram? Or do I have to size up to a 36" printer or larger to print predefined cut sizes something like A0 (42 x 30") or E (34 x 44")?

Also, any recommendations on this size of a printer are appreciated. I see several on the market from HP, Epson and Canon.

Thanks.

• Edited by Floorplanner Wednesday, May 27, 2015 1:58 AM

You might find it worth asking local printing companies what they can print for you, it might be a lot cheaper that buying a printer able to cope with that size of paper. Do the architects need a paper copy or can they take an electronic file?