problems when creating PDF files from AutoCAD

[Jaydigital]

We are still using AutoCAD 14 (I know, I know) and are in the process of upgrading to Land Desktop 4 (nice and easy transition, yeah right). More and more of our clients are requesting that we send files in PDF format, is there a simple way to do it?

At the moment, in R14, we are printing the images at full size, scanning them at full size, then converting the TIFF images to PDF format.

I've been playing with the CTB files in Acad 2004 to make it match our old Acad 14 print settings, but it will not print correctly. if there is an area hatched it completey blocks the objects underneath. Is it possible to make objects print with transparency so that objects and lines underneath will be visible?

We are printing grayscale construction documents which contain many layers from many different xrefs, so it wouldn't be easy to just play with the object display order and put the grayscale (all colors are set to black, with varied level of screening) objects behind the black objects.

Any help would be GREATLY appreciated. Thanks.

JD

[architech]

For your PDF question see this link....

http://www.autocadeverything.com/phpBB/ftopic498.php

:mrgreen:

As for the 2nd question ... give me a second.

[architech]

The answer to your 2nd question.

Check the "merge" control property in the PC3 file you use for plotting.

Hope that helps.

:D

[Jaydigital]

Thanks for the tips. For R14 I'll try a few of the programs you suggested.

In the PC3 file, I tried changing the merge option from "Lines Overwrite" to "Lines Merge", but the outcome in the PDF file is still the same.

In Acad 2004, we're using Adobe PDF as the printer (I think it was automatically installed as a printer when Adobe Acrobat 6.0 was installed). I've attached the resulting PDF file so you can see what happens. if you zoom in a little, you can see the grey hatch in the paved areas is covering the black text underneath it. If you want to play with the DWG file(s) I can send them also (4-5 DWG files, probably around 1.2MB).

I don't know if vector graphics can be assigned a transparency level, but would there be any way to convert the information into raster-based information and apply some sort of dithering that would make the layers visible in the PDF?

Thanks Again.