Print the Fault Tree

The printer icon of the toolbar of the diagram opens the Print fault trees window, which generates a PDF, or a Word file, with the drawing of the fault tree.

The nodes hidden with Hide Node (print) are left out of the drawing. See Hide Nodes in the Print.

What is printed

• Print current FTA: The fault tree that is loaded.

• Print selected: Like Calculate selected, it prints only the gate selected in the diagram and everything below it, with the title Selected Gate. Click first on a gate of the diagram, open the window and check the option. It works with Print current FTA only, and needs one gate selected: a basic, undeveloped or house event, or a remark, cannot be printed alone. Selecting the top gate is the same as printing the whole fault tree. The table of pages counts the pages of the selected gate.

• Select FTAs to print: The fault trees checked in the list, or all of them with Select All, one after the other in a single file. The pages are numbered through the whole file.

Options

• File name: Name of the downloaded file. Left empty, it is the ID of the fault tree followed by the date and the time.

• Size & Layout: From A4 to A0, in portrait or landscape. The table under the buttons shows how many pages the fault trees chosen take in each of them, so the format can be chosen before printing. The selected format is framed, and clicking a number selects that format. A ✕ marks a format that does not fit: leave the mouse over it to see why. The comments table is not counted.

• Export in Word format: Generates a Word file with each page of the drawing as a picture, its title and a numbered caption, ready to be included in a report. The file only has the drawing, so the header, the footer, the template and the comments do not apply.

• Add Comments table: Adds, after the drawing of each fault tree, landscape pages with a table of the comments of its nodes. With Print selected, the comments of the selected gate and of the nodes below it.

• Print in B&W: Draws the gates, the events and the logo in grey tones.

• Remove header: Leaves out the title and the logo of the top of the pages.

• Remove footer: Leaves out the name of the project and the system, the page number, the date and the copyright.

• Remove template: Leaves out the background of the page, when FTA > Settings has a PDF template for the system.

The Full export window, from the download icon of the toolbar, has the same options for the loaded fault tree, in its Fault Tree Diagram section.

How a big fault tree is laid out

A fault tree that does not fit in one page continues on other pages:

• A gate that does not fit is drawn as a transfer gate with a Page N link under it. Clicking the link goes to the page where the gate continues.

• That page starts with the gate, and above it there are Page N links to the pages where it is used.

• A gate that is repeated in the fault tree is drawn once, in a page of its own, and each copy links to that page. N repeats next to a node tells how many more copies of it the fault tree has.

• The PDF has bookmarks with the title of each page, nested as the transfer gates are.

A larger size needs fewer pages and is easier to read, since the size of the nodes does not change with the size of the page.

Note

Each page size has a limit of children under one gate: 8 in A4 portrait, 12 in A4 landscape and A3 portrait, 16 in A3 landscape and A2 portrait, 20 in A2 landscape and A1 portrait, 24 in A1 landscape and A0 portrait, and 28 in A0 landscape. A format over that limit shows a ✕ in the table and cannot be printed: choose a larger size, or group the children under new OR gates.

Note

In the Word file, the pictures of the A2, A1 and A0 sizes have a limit of 6000 pixels on their longest side, so that the file stays at a manageable size. To see the smallest details of a very large page, use the PDF.