AutoCAD 2010/2011/2012 DWG Format

[#1]

I use Export to PDF quite often, but there is one thing about it that does not make sense to me. Most of the drawings I work with have multiple tabs that I want to convert to one PDF. I select 'All layouts' and then click 'Save'. The result is a PDF of the current layout. I double check to make certain that I have 'All layouts' selected and try it again. It always works the second time through.

Is this a known bug in 2012? Or is there a setting that I need to check?

[#2]

Hi,

have you tried command _PUBLISH instead? (>>>details<<<)

- alfred -

[#3]

Thank you, Alfred. That helps.

One problem though: When I change the location of the PDF file, the location is not retained in the list. In other words, when I tell it where to create the PDF, it will place it there, but when I run the +PUBLISH command again, I have to browse to the location once more. Seems like it should remember the last file location. It also does not retain the other settings I apply in the dialog box.

David

[#4]

Hi,

haven't tried it, but maybe the sysvar REMEMBERFOLDERS (>>>details<<<) is a help?

- alfred -

[#5]

Daveng, I don't have an answer for you, but I can at least offer up what I have learned. 

I have both of the problems that you describe when trying to export to pdf.  Lets say you only want to publish the current layout.  If you enter the Export to PDF dialog box and it is set to "All Layouts", you change it to "Current Layout" and hit save.  Instead of publishing the current layout as you requested, it publishes all layouts.  When you try again, you open the Export to PDF dialog box which is now changed to "Current Layout".  This time when you hit save, it actually publishes the current layout.

Conversely, you want to publish all layouts, so you enter the Export to PDF dialog box.  This time it is set to "Current Layout" so you switch it to "All Layouts" and hit send.  Naturally, you get the current layout.  On the second try, you get all layouts.

In and of itself, this is a nuisance.  It becomes an absolute hair-ripper because the Export to PDF function does not remember the file path from one time to the next.  EVER.

Our project filing system is necessarily complex.  Consequently, EVERY time I try to create a PDF, I have to enter the ENTIRE file path.  Often times it is five or six folders deep.

I can save one step by going into the Export to PDF dialog box options and setting the default pathway to our project root directory.  This is slightly better because it at least eliminates one click.

Here's what I have learned:

I have noticed this same behavior with Adobe Acrobat when publishing from other applications such as Word or Excel.  I did a bunch of hunting and learned that there is no setting in Acrobat that allows Acrobat to remember the previous file path.  The best  you can do is what I described above and set a root pathway that will take you to your most-used destination.

SO...Unless AutoDesk chooses to work this out with Adobe, I think that we will always have a clunky dwg to pdf conversion process.  While it is no surprise that Adobe can't do any better, I am disappointed in AutoDesk for not ironing this out.

[#6]

Try using PLOT and PUBLISH commands for best control instead of exporting to PDF to achieve the two different wishes. You might get better desired results too.

Use the DWG TO PDF driver too, don't be tempted to use Acrobat as that will only repeat your problem.

For answers to questions about Adobe Acrobat, try posting in the open user forums over at Adobe's website.

[#7]

Thanks pendean.

Hooray! Publish solves both problems. Thank you for your recommendation. It took me a while to figure out how to use it, but once I did it worked great.

I am curious about a couple of things, though. You suggest that I shouldn't use Acrobat, but that seems to be what you get when you select Export to PDF from the ribbon. (If it isn't Acrobat, it sure behaves like Acrobat.) I don't see that there is another option. If Export to PDF doesn't work, then why is that the only apparent option on the ribbon?

Publish is on the ribbon, as well, but it only has two options; Publish to Google Earth and Share with Seek (whatever that is). Publish (as you implied in your response to me) really only works if you type PUBLISH on the command line. When you access it that way, you get the Publish Dialog Box. Since I am a very long time user of AutoCAD, using the command line is second nature, but why isn't PUBLISH included in the ribbon as a way to create PDFs? Perhaps I'm missing something hidden in plain sight?

[#8]

No, I just meant don't use Acrobat as your PDF driver to generate PDF files if the built-in PDF driver inside AutoCAD is sufficient. I think you are refering to Acrobat that opens the PDF after creation?

For PUBLISH access:

• Click once on the big red A at the top-left corner of the AutoCAD program Window, PUBLISH (and more) is on that list.
• On the Ribbon it's under the OUTPUT tab.
• If you use the QAT you can turn it on in less that 3-seconds using the QAT's far right arrow that points down.
• You can always add it anywhere else you want on the Ribbon using CUI command.

[#9]

I think my confusion is that I was actually using the built-in PDF driver, but that it was behaving so much like Acrobat that I just assumed that AutoCAD was using the Acrobat driver.

Regardless, thanks for the info on where to find PUBLISH. I added an icon to my QAT (I had to google QAT because I was pretty sure you weren't talking about the stuff Yemenis like to stuff in their cheeks.), and with a little more google research I was able to use the CUI to customize the ribbon to include the PUBLISH button.

[#10]

Not many people know about the Yemeni tradition