AutoCAD 2010/2011/2012 DWG Format

[#1]

I have an issue when using the DWG to PDF plotter built into AutoCAD 2011.  It started when I would generate PDFs from AutoCAD and then try printing them to our office printer for a hard copy.  I kept getting the "flattening" bar popping up which caused a set of 20 drawings to take 30 mins to print.  Where other PDF generators the drawings shoot out of the printer ASAP.  And in a busy office likes mine, tying up a  printer for that long is kind of frowned upon.  So I did a little poking around on these discussion groups in regards to this flattening things...and I've found some solutions.  But they didn't solve my flattening issue.  I tweeked the "Merge Control" as most of the posts mention along with turning off "layers in PDF" as well.  My PDFs are still flattening.  All my drawings are 2D...no 3D information.

And now I've noticed after changing the "Merge Control" and "Layer Display" in my pc3 file, it is putting black boxes on text that have a background mask...not a wipeout.  I know there have been issues in the past with PDFs and wipeouts...but in my case it's the background mask function.  I've even tried using a 255,255,255 colour for my background mask colour (instead of my default "background colour") and that didn't work.  And the other weird thing is that it's not blacking out all text with background masks.  On one drawing it'll be blacked out and in the next, the exact same piece of text will be fine.  It's even only blacking out portions of lines of text.  Completely random!

Any and all help with these issues would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks!

[#2]

HERE IS THE DISCUSSION ON THE SAME ITEM

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/AutoCAD-2011/Massive-Problems-creating-PDF-Files-merged-lines/m-p/3271...

[#3]

That was one of the various posts I've read.  And still have the issue.  I might have to bring this issue forward with our IT group and see about purchasing a PDF creator that doesn't have any problems like the ones I mentioned and problems we had with other PDF creators.

I will try the DWF option mentioned in the post...but that seems like a lot of extra work that shouldn't be necessary considering I'm using the built in PDF creator in CADD.

Thanks for the reply!

[#4]

Not sure it will help much - even professional pdf creator wil lcause almost same problems. just download tryal version before purchasing it - I did so when we were going to buy pro to create 3D pdf's and were really dissapointed.

And, actually, publish to dwf and then print to pdf is very good solution! Yes, it is some extra work but gives good result

[#5]

'flattening' is the nature of PDF with AutoCAD, Photoshop and more. There are 3rd party PDF drivers that overrule an end user's selection and flatten PDFs during creation all the time, and basically take you the end-user out of the loop/control: BLUEBEAM has it and so do others. These are not free.

I've not seen your WIPEOUT issue here, can you post a small DWG sample that plots with this issue? We all have 2011. Or is the problem only present with 'large' PDF files?

Please ensure this is not a DRAWORDER issue, or plotting from a Layout with a wipeout above a viewport issue.

[#6]

Thanks for the insight to the "flattening" issue.  I will let the rest of the drafting staff in the office here know about it.  I guess we'll just have to deal with the delayed printing.

I have attached a JPG of the issue I'm having in regards to the  background masking of text.  To clarify my original statement, it is background masking of MText that is the issue.  Not wipeouts.  As you can see the black boxes are generated randomly on text.  I seldom use regular dtext anymore simply because I love the background masking option of Mtext.  This is only after I set the settings to eliminate the "flattening" issue. 

[#7]

The draworder and wipeouts in layout printing are not an issue...since this is all Mtext background masking

[#8]

Can't replicate in R2011: see attached PDF.

Are you plotting to the default DWG to PDF.PC3 driver?

If you change your MASK to "use background color" does the problem still exist?

[#9]

I used to have the problem of black boxes / striped lines through my wipeouts.  Our cure was a toggle within our Adobe driver through C3D where we could select "plot as image" 

This was with a former employer, not my present workstation, so I can't upload a screen-capture of where it is located... sorry

[#10]

Yes I'm plotting with the default PC3 file and my background mask is already set to "background color".