In Archicad, as with most other CAD programs, in order to print your drawings you first need to set them up on sheets (layouts), add a titleblock, issue date and any revision notes as required. Although it is possible to print directly from your workspace, it is not recommended that this method is used for issuing or printing drawings as you will have no digital record of what was printed at any given time, since your workspace is constantly changing.

In older versions of Archicad, the layout book was located in an independent program known as Plotmaker and drawings for publishing had to be exported as PMK files, saved to a known location on the server, and subsequently imported into Plotmaker where the drawing sheets were set up. Since version 9, Plotmaker was integrated within Archicad itself, and the Navigator and Organiser were introduced as a means to manage it (as well as printing, publishing, exporting drawings etc.)

The Layout Book is a tree view of all the Layouts defined for the entire project, plus all Drawings placed on each Layout. The Layouts are like virtual sheets of paper where Views from the View Map (drawings, 3D perspectives, lists, schedules, etc.) are placed on. In the Layout Book, you can organise Layouts into subsets (represented by folders).

Watch out for: The correct way is to set up a view first then place that view on a sheet, either via drag and drop from the Navigator or via the Organizer (see below).