Square Feet or Linear Feet - What's The Difference?

What is the Difference in Wide Format printing in square feet or Linear Feet?

The difference is pretty simple. Square feet will calculate the total number of feet within the entire drawing. Linear feet will only calculate 1 edge of the print.

SQUARE FEET

For example...

If we had a 24x36 (in) drawing and we wanted to figure out how many square feet are in the drawing... There are 2 ways to figure it out.

Option 1. Multiply the (Length X Width) In feet - 2x3=6

Option 2. This is to be used if you are trying to figure out the square footage in "inches". Multiply the (Length X Width) then DIVIDE by 144. 24X36=864 / 864÷144= 6

Option 2 is very popular if the drawing is not a perfect number. It would eliminate an additional step of figuring out the decimals for the odd size.

For Example, If your drawing was 28x57 (in).. In feet it would be 2.333x4.75 = 11.08

If we calculated the square footage in inches, it comes out to - 28x57=1596 1596÷144=11.08

Square feet is the most accurate way to track a customer's usage. Almost all Wide format printers have a square footage meter in the machine.

LINEAR FEET

Older machines used to track by the linear foot. Sometime in newer machines, They will track both. The Xerox 6204 tracks both. Any Newer Oce' or KIP printer will only track in square feet.

Linear feet only tracks the length of the print.

For example...

If we had a 24x36 (in) drawing and we wanted to figure out how many Linear feet are in the drawing... We look at the edge that was fed out of the machine.

If this drawing was printed Landscape - there will be 2 linear feet printed

If this drawing was printed portrait - There will be 3 linear feet printed.

**If you wanted to try to calculate how many square feet were a Linear foot print.... Take the Linear foot number and multiply it by 3. (Use 3 if you use 36" rolls)**