PDF's don't show up in Plot Preview if.....Here's a CAD stumper!

[scott]

Hello All - I'm running Autocad Architecture 2013.   My .dwg has about 15 pdf's in it (from a consultant that does hand drawings that I scan in, and use the image manager to insert into my drawing).  The PDF's range from under 1mb, to 10mb.    The PDFs are in model space and within my various drawing sheets, I show them in my drawing sheets via multiple viewports.  I noticed that when I go to plot a sheet that has pdfs shown in viewports, and click on PLOT PREVIEW, the PDF's don't show up - everything else shows up, linework, jpegs, etc, but not the PDF's!   I fiddled with the viewports and noticed that if some part of the PDF's image frame was visible in the Viewport, the PDF would appear in Print Preview.   But if the viewport sat directly over the PDF's image frame, the PDF would not show up in the Plot Preview!!!

Anyone know why this would occur?   Could it be I've exceeded the maximum number of Viewports in my entire .dwg? (I have about 16 sheets),  Or, could it be some mysterious autocad system variable that I'm running up against.

Any longshot tips or suggestions would be appreciated, because this one is really giving me an itch I can't scratch!~!!

[pendean]

Your system/video card can't handle it perhaps?

[scott]

I'm using an I7 Dell Precision 6800 laptop, dual monitor, Solid state HD + standard platter HD, 16g ram, Nvidia K4000 4gb card - it's a tank, and I thought the same thing - perhaps I have too many viewports or sheet tabs in my drawing, but what I discovered this morning makes me believe something else is amiss.

As an experiment, I created a blank drawing.   On the dwg I'm having the plot preview issues, I made a copy of that file, called it "Test Drawing", and performed autodesk's procedure for File Corruption (involves the command ' -purge', as shown on their Services and Support internet page).  Following their procedure after saving my fully purged drawing, I imported that drawing into my new blank drawing, all of the PDF's, in addition to all the linework for plans, elevations, sections done with autocad display - the drawing has all the 'stuff' it should have.   I clicked onto the default Layout  sheet tab (the one that always appears when one makes a new blank drawing), and used the default viewport and moved a few of the PDF's into the viewport, selected my plotter, and hit Preview -  and what a surprise, the PDF's did indeed APPEAR in the plot preview.  

Here's where it gets interesting.   I brought in the sheet layout tabs from the original "Test drawing",  importing all the sheet tabs (I have about 27 sheet tabs in this test drawing, including 'model')  from "Test Drawing" into my fresh new drawing.   I went to one of the sheet tabs where I only have PDF's shown in viewports and did a Plot Preview - same as before, the PDF's don't appear in Plot Preview.    Next, I went back to the default sheet layout tab, where I know the PDFs in the viewport will show in Plot preview, copied that viewport into the sheet where the viewports won't show up in plot preview.  I perform another Plot Preview, and the only PDF's that appear are from the viewport I copied from the default sheet layout tab!!!!

I can only conclude, that something has really gone wrong with the viewports in my Test Drawing.  Only the newly created viewport (on same layer as the other viewports), works as it should - showing the PDF's in the plot preview.

How did my viewports get broken in the plot preview - the drawings print out just fine, but not being able to see what the sheet looks like in plot preview is maddening!  I'm a bit stumped at this, but it appears that if I want my PDF's to show up, I'm going to have to copy/paste this working viewport into all the sheets that I'm showing PDF's via a viewport.   Another labourious Autocad WTF afternoon waster?  Perhaps, but if anyone has any clues as to why, I'd appreciate the insight.

[pendean]

Thanks for the detailed follow-up.