How to Customize LabVIEW Documentation for Large Block Diagram

When printing LabVIEW documentation, you may have experienced results where large images, such as the Block Diagram(s), are cut into multiple pages, reducing readability. 

This article describes how to customize LabVIEW Documentation options in the LabVIEW Print Dialog Box in order to create documentation where all large images, including the Block Diagram(s), fit on one page/file.

1. Open the VI that you'd like to document. Go to File >> Print. Then, follow the Print window instructions:
2. Select VI(s) - Select either the single VI or multiple VIs, depending on how many VIs you'd like to document together.
3. Print Contents - Select VI documentation to customize the documentation components.
4. VI Documentation - Enable the VI components that you'd like to document. Ensure that the Block Diagram checkbox is marked. You can also enable Front Panel, VI Hierarchy and/or any other components.
5. Destination - Select the file format depending on your needs: Printer, HTML, Rich Text Format (RTF) file or Plain text file (TXT). 
   • The HTML File can be opened quickly in any browser, while the RTF file is better suited for Microsoft Word or similar applications.

• Printer:
  
  • This option allows you to use the system dialog box to print your file(s). You can either select a printer or the Microsoft Print to PDF option to create a PDF file instead of printing.
  • You can select the options Scale front panel to fit and/or Scale block diagram to fit to scale the image size down to no less than one-fourth of the original size. These options will not successfully scale images that are too large.
• HTML:
  • When saving the results, make sure to create a new folder for the output files. All related images will be created as separate files and placed in the same directory of the main file. 
• RTF: 
  • You can disable the Help compiler source checkbox to avoid creating separate image files.
• TXT:
  • In plain text files, the block diagram, front panel, VI hierarchy and similar components with images won't be available.

Next Steps

Additionally, consider creating subVIs from existing block diagram code to reduce the size of the block diagram and improve readability.