TheSwamp
CAD Forums => CAD General => Topic started by: Guest on July 24, 2007, 08:44:50 AM
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What PDF software are you using? Do you like it? Pros/Cons? Is the output accurate/reliable?
I'm currently evaluating Bluebeam. So far it's pretty good, but I'm not sure if upper-management will go for the price.
It seems to be the only one (that I've seen so far) in which the line merge option REALLY works. I've tried Acroplot - not sold on that one because the line merging wasn't very good.
I also like the stapler feature of Bluebeam - it allows you to select multiple PDFs and merge them into a single PDF (good for specs) and you can reorder them any way you lik AND it works in other applications as well, not just AutoCAD - a big plus.
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We've been using Bluebeam for about 3 years now. It has been very good software. The batch creation feature is hands down the biggest time saver.
Ron
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Good question. I am curious to see how this pans out.
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We use Adobe Acrobat Pro 7.0
The results are consistent, reliable, and file sizes have never been a problem. It prints everything as we expect, including background masks and white hatches.
The driver it makes available in Autocad allows publish to plot to one multi-page pdf, or seperate files, but in either situation, you can just select all the files you want in Windows Explorer, right click and select "Combine in Adobe Acrobat" to put them all in one multi-page file, that you can put in whatever order you want before it creates it, so no worrying about selecting the files in the right order or anything.
It has a "reduce file size" function, which, depending on content I have seen reduce anywhere from (-)5% to about 90%... yes that was negative 5% :-D I've only seen it 2-3 times, but it still makes me laugh when "reduce file size" somehow makes it bigger. Other times though I've seen it go from 5mb to 50kb. Very nice for when you're emailing the full size sheets for whatever reason.
It can also take a multi-page pdf and extract sheets (all or only those selected in the dialog) so you can go either way with it.
I think the price is what sets people off, but I personally like the peace of mind that my pdf creator is universal for all my programs, has no obvious flaws, and is reliable, stable, and requires no tech support. This is the only program I've never had to go online searching for answers to questions or problems. I've never HAD any problems with it from the moment I put the cd in, until now. I can't say the same for any piece of software I regularly use on this computer... (aside from MS Paint, Notepad, and Solitaire of course ;) )
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I use AcroPlot Pro - in general it is very good -
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It prints everything as we expect, including background masks and white hatches.
Huh??!? :?
Psssst.... if you wanted to hatch something white, wouldn't you just leave it unhatched??!
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It prints everything as we expect, including background masks and white hatches.
Huh??!? :?
Psssst.... if you wanted to hatch something white, wouldn't you just leave it unhatched??!
Now and then there's a situation where I want to "wipeout" something, but I don't trust wipeouts. So I use a hatch that's like 254,254,254. I told someone at another office to try that out when he called me asking how to solve the problem he was having (wipeouts printing as a solid black rectangle) and he said it always printed with grey dots on his pdf's (forget which creator he used) regardless of what number he used for 'close to white - but not white, so it doesnt switch to black'
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...It has a "reduce file size" function, which, depending on content I have seen reduce anywhere from (-)5% to about 90%... yes that was negative 5% :-D I've only seen it 2-3 times, but it still makes me laugh when "reduce file size" somehow makes it bigger.....
HehHehHeh...
Reminds me of the time my boss calls me to ask, "How come when I ZIP this file it gets bigger?"
"Ummm...what's the name of the file you zipped?"
"Spec_072106" (or some such thing.)
"What's the WHOLE name."
"That IS the whole name!"
"Look at the suffix."
"The what?"
"Turn on the file types and tell me the whole name."
...minutes pass....
"Errr... Spec_072106.zip"
"Do you get it now?" :roll:
<Edit: I clarified my tale a tad, as aparently it was a bit confusing. He was trying to zip a zip file.>
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It prints everything as we expect, including background masks and white hatches.
Huh??!? :?
Psssst.... if you wanted to hatch something white, wouldn't you just leave it unhatched??!
Now and then there's a situation where I want to "wipeout" something, but I don't trust wipeouts. So I use a hatch that's like 254,254,254. I told someone at another office to try that out when he called me asking how to solve the problem he was having (wipeouts printing as a solid black rectangle) and he said it always printed with grey dots on his pdf's (forget which creator he used) regardless of what number he used for 'close to white - but not white, so it doesnt switch to black'
It's these kinds of workarounds and glitches that make me hate having to publish PDF's. Unfortunately, the State Architect is demanding PDF's for checking purposes, so we have no choice. For a while it looked like they might just go to DWF's, but no such luck.
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For our PDF files, we use our batch plot utility that came with our plotter. We plot to our Kip6000 (plt files) and use the PowerPrint software to convert to PDF. They turn out great .. much better than even the Adobe distiller or ghostscript PDF plotter.
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PDF995 here. The only problem I've had is when plotting rendered views, sometimes things get "cropped". Not sure if its a memory problem or what, but a good free/inexpensive tool nontheless.
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I use CutePDF (http://www.cutepdf.com). It's free and prints anything. I like the output a lot. I haven't seen anything bad out of it, but then I don't scrutinize things very well. I believe there is a paid for version, but I don't know what the extras are with that. I'm just happy to be able to produce pdf's at request, which is often.
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Out of curiosity, what are all these PDF's you're making made from?
The only time I do a PDF is from AutoCAD, & then I just "plot to PDF".
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Out of curiosity, what are all these PDF's you're making made from?
The only time I do a PDF is from AutoCAD, & then I just "plot to PDF".
That's where I'd noticed problems with it printing wipeouts, and I noticed inconsistencies with the lineweights, and the files sizes were HORRENDOUS, when I tried it.
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HehHehHeh...
Reminds me of the time my boss calls me to ask, "How come when I ZIP this file it gets bigger?"
"Ummm...what's the file name?"
"Spec_072106" (or some such thing.)
"What's the WHOLE name."
"That IS the whole name!"
"Look at the suffix."
"The what?"
"Turn on the file types and tell me the whole name."
...minutes pass....
"Errr... Spec_072106.zip"
"Do you get it now?" :roll:
:?
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:?
Go try & zip a zip file & you'll figure it out. ;-)
<Edit: Because the danged "A" key is sticking on my keyboard.>
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hehe... zip a zip... now that's just FUN to SAY.
...it's been a long day.
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Out of curiosity, what are all these PDF's you're making made from?
The only time I do a PDF is from AutoCAD, & then I just "plot to PDF".
Not sure who you're asking, but with CutePDF I can print word documents, excel, notepad, most anything software related. It's set up as a printer object. So, mine's made from CutePDF.
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We use PrimoPDF, CutePDF and Adobe Acrobat 7.0 Pro depending on who's machine you're on. Don't really have too many problems with any of them. We need (and pay for) Acrobat because we need to modify PDF's from time to time. If I had to chose one, it would have to be Acrobat...
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Not sure who you're asking...
Anybody with an answer :wink:
I've never been big on PDF's, and I guess I'm just looking for more rationale to like/use them.
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We use PDF 995 at work but I use Acrobat Pro at home and prefer it.
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Not sure who you're asking...
Anybody with an answer :wink:
I've never been big on PDF's, and I guess I'm just looking for more rationale to like/use them.
Th reason we use them is because frequently we have to provide a set of plans for review to owners, builders, contractors etc. More often than not, in fact in the many years I have been doing this it has happened only once, these people do not have AutoCAD and it is problematic for many to ask that they go to autodesk and download a viewer that will need to be updated whenever the drawing format changes. However, almost everyone has the free adobe reader installed on their system. Most computers come with it pre-installed. For that reason alone, it makes more sense to provide a PDF. Also, whenever we provide a plot set to any printer, they can easily plot the files without having to install any special software. The files look exactly like they are supposed to every time.
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Like and Use are two different things. It's a matter of giving in to the machine. Everybody has adobe reader. Everyone wants it in PDF format. That's why I use it. There are some reasons to like it. Sending a document from windows to unix and back helps to keep the format better than OO does for one. I'm sure there are more, I just don't have them. Really though, it's like asking why we use Autocad? Well, it's the standard. Everyone knows about it. You can't get away from it.
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Point taken, and I understand the need for platform independence, but my best tool is a hammer so I tend to see every job as a nail. :wink:
I guess I'm just a bit PO'd that the SE's at the state architect are now demanding PDF's for checking, while record sets must still be in DWG format. PDF is not what I consider an engineer's tool, but rather a literary/publisher's tool. Anyhow, it's just extra work for us with no compensation. I guess I was just reaching for any idea that would imply an advantage/compensation for us, as the designers.
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I see it as being no different than plotting a set. If I plot a set to PDF that is essentially the same as me plotting a set to paper .. 'ceptin it is less work to do a PDF
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Expanding on Keith's comment about recipients not having AutoCAD, now having AutoCAD is not necessarily enough. If a drawing is created with a vertical application such as ADT or Civil 3D, unless the correct object enabler is installed AutoCAD can not display many key parts of the drawing.
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PDF creator because it's opensource
http://www.pdfforge.org/products/pdfcreator/
http://pdfcreator.sf.net
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PDF creator because it's opensource
http://www.pdfforge.org/products/pdfcreator/
http://pdfcreator.sf.net
and flawed.
That's the first PDF Creator my company went with... we quickly ditched it after so much money being lost having to get reprints done using a NON sucky pdf maker.
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PDF creator because it's opensource
http://www.pdfforge.org/products/pdfcreator/
http://pdfcreator.sf.net
and flawed.
That's the first PDF Creator my company went with... we quickly ditched it after so much money being lost having to get reprints done using a NON sucky pdf maker.
I've been using it for several years now without any problems, although it did take some trial and error to get it configured just right. What issues did you have with it?
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PDF creator because it's opensource
http://www.pdfforge.org/products/pdfcreator/
http://pdfcreator.sf.net
and flawed.
That's the first PDF Creator my company went with... we quickly ditched it after so much money being lost having to get reprints done using a NON sucky pdf maker.
I've been using it for several years now without any problems, although it did take some trial and error to get it configured just right. What issues did you have with it?
Inconsistent lineweight printing, plotting shades/hatches/wipeouts as solid black polygons at times, and it didn't like our shaded lines too much, because it always made them like 50% lighter than they shoulda been. This could have been due to the pdfs made by this driver not having a good relationship with whatever conversion our outside printers' use, but either way, it wasn't working out.
The boss had it from the old company he worked at, and I think there was a guy there who set it up right, and it wasn't working well over here... I had no clue what it was really until I read about it recently. It was the bosses' baby and when he couldn't get it to work right, I provided a reliable, efficient, cost effective solution that anyone could use.
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We use PDF Factory as it will group all of your plots together and then we print that to CutePDF which puts them all nicely into one PDF.
I really like the PDF format because most people have PDF reader and know how to hit print so simplifies things. The only small problem is them not understanding the scaling so they will just print to fit and the scale wont be exact. No biggy though.
In my old job and this one we get asked to plot AutoCAD drawings for different people and found that telling them to produce a PDF was so much easier as I wouldn't have to continually chase up the fonts they never sent or the plot styles.