Frank H, what i know about PDF that you make from your software is that it will produce margins around it approx. 3 or 5% of the format.

As I have a professional release of Adobe PDF I will "crop the page" with Shift+Ctrl+T = reduce the margins to zero so that printing on a big format will be at correct scale.

I do a zoom on respectivly on each opposite corner to do this and remember the margin controls for a next time.

If you print on a little format like letter 11"x8.5" or tabloid 17"x11" you will have to cope with the natural margins of your printer.

You can have an idea of that margins when you launch a print with the option scle to fit and take a look at the informations : scale of the print / 1 mm / 1.0XX units ( sorry it tranlated from french ).

I fyou print a shorter format with that ratio, then your print on your littke printer will be at the right scale.

Do a test and measure it on the paper.

Do a test with a normal print and with a PDF virtual print and you will see that PDF is doing some 3 or 5% more margins.

Ask for more and tell us if this helped or not.

 

 

If they support AutoCAD ( please declare your softwares in your personnal datas ), then give them your .ctb to be used and if the formats are not evident, send them in separated indicated formats directories so that they don't make any mistakes.

Some printing companies support any softaware but it will cost you 15 minutes of work on each file ( expansive ).

Some companies will ask you for a .plt file with the settings of their printer ( ask the settings ).

Other companies will support PDF files and then you will have to take precautions for them to print them "fit to size exactly" if not you will have some approx. +5% scale.