When exporting your plan to PDF, the DPI (dots per inch) setting controls how much detail your plan contains. The best DPI depends on what you plan to do with the PDF:
For Printing 🖨️
-
Recommended: 300 DPI
This is the standard resolution for crisp prints. -
When to increase:
If your drawing includes very fine lines or small text, you can go up to 600 DPI. -
Higher than 600 DPI rarely improves print quality, but makes the file much larger.
For Digital Use (on-screen viewing or zooming) 💻
When viewing on screen, the zoom level determines how much detail users can see.
To keep the image sharp, use this simple rule:
Effective DPI = Base 300 × Desired Zoom Factor
|
Desired zoom level |
Recommended DPI |
Example use case |
|---|---|---|
|
1× (no zoom) |
300 DPI |
normal on-screen viewing |
|
2× zoom |
600 DPI |
casual zooming |
|
5× zoom |
1500 DPI |
detailed inspection |
|
10× zoom |
3000 DPI |
technical plans, small page size |
Why Page Size Matters 📏
When viewing your plan digitally, a zoomlevel of for example 5 means users can zoom in five times while keeping the image sharp.
Smaller pages need a higher DPIto preserve the same level of zoom clarity, because they contain less detail per inch.
Some examples :
zoomlevel of 2
|
Page size |
Typical use |
Recommended DPI (for sharpness at 2× zoom) |
|---|---|---|
|
A0 or larger |
large-format drawings |
300–400 DPI |
|
A1 |
technical plans |
400–500 DPI |
|
A2 |
detailed sections |
500–600 DPI |
|
A3 |
small plans or detail sheets |
600–800 DPI |
|
A4 or smaller |
small details or zoom-critical exports |
800–1000 DPI |
zoomlevel of 5
|
Page size |
Typical use |
Recommended DPI (for sharpness at 5× zoom) |
|---|---|---|
|
A0 or larger |
large-format drawings |
600 DPI |
|
A1 |
technical plans |
900 DPI |
|
A2 |
detailed sections |
1200 DPI |
|
A3 |
small plans or detail sheets |
1500 DPI |
|
A4 or smaller |
small details or zoom-critical exports |
1800–2000 DPI |
zoomlevel of 10
|
Page size |
Typical use |
Recommended DPI (for sharpness at 10× zoom) |
|---|---|---|
|
A0 or larger |
large-format drawings |
1200 DPI |
|
A1 |
technical plans |
1800 DPI |
|
A2 |
detailed sections |
2400 DPI |
|
A3 |
small plans or detail sheets |
3000 DPI |
|
A4 or smaller |
small details or zoom-critical exports |
3600–4000 DPI |
💡 Tip: For very detailed digital review, go higher; for faster exports and smaller files, you can reduce the DPI slightly.
Hardware and Performance Limits ⚠️
Depending on the size of your model and the selected DPI, you might reach the memory limit or other hardware limits of your browser during export.
This can cause the export process to slow down, fail, or even crash the browser.
If that happens, try lowering the DPI and exporting again.
If you’re really stuck and need a higher-resolution export, please contact support at support@hysopt.com — we’ll be happy to help find a solution.
PDF Viewing Recommendation
PDF exports of Hysopt models that include high-resolution floor plans can easily reach several hundred megabytes. Many PDF readers struggle to open files of this size, which can result in slow loading, laggy navigation, or incomplete rendering of schematics.
For the smoothest experience, we recommend opening large PDFs directly in a web browser (Chrome, Edge, Firefox). Browser-based viewers handle large files significantly better in most cases. Traditional desktop viewers such as Adobe Acrobat Reader tend to perform slower with very large documents.