Option to force Vault to use existing DWF linked to IDW for batch plot

[Anonymous]

When I first migrated from 2009 to 2012, I was royally POed that batch plot would no longer print existing DWF files linked to IDWs because they were not generated by the job processor. They were now considered unmanaged, uncontrolled or some other nonsense.

So, the solution from the lovers of all things Autodesk was to simply use the job processor to regen all DWFs. Yes, years & years of perfectly good DWF files may as well have never existed. So ok, I proceeded to regen a hundred thousand old files using the job processor which runs horribly, horribly slow (maybe it has been improved in new versions).

I then altered my workflow to send checked-in files to the job processor for DWF generation . Once again, horribly slow, runs like crap, huge productivity hit while I wait for this piece of crap job processor to generate DWF files just so batch plot can be used. Ok, some of you are saying, "it batch plots from IDW so just use the IDWs". Ok, so I proceed to do this & yup, you guessed it, plotting performance using IDW is garbage compared to DWF. Plus you can't batch plot IDWs on a computer that doesn't have Inventor installed. Why would anyone want to do this? Maybe because there are people in other company departments that need to batch plot drawings from their computers?

Ok, so those who are still with me, I'm sure you are now saying: "Go to tools, options & enable show hidden files. Then just select the DWFs & plot from them." Ok, yeah, I could do this. Because obviously all those default Inventor files aren't enough & the amount of files I have to sort & weed through must be doubled.

So, in the end Autodesk won & I gave up on using batch plot.

[smilinger]

I agree with Makarov, DWF is the only way in vault to plot drawings fast and good, other ways are horrible.

It's bad decision for Autodesk to change the behavior of dwf printing so violently after 2009, when things change, please give users a choice, maybe make it an option in vault administration settings is a better idea. So administrators can decide whether to use user generated dwf for plot.

[Senthil_Kumar]

Thanks for sharing your Idea. We use this forum to guide product development and help users in the best way we can based on voting. We occasionally merge Ideas or archive old ones to keep the forum working properly- it ensures there is room for people to review new Ideas and that the most relevant and meaningful ones can gain votes. We’re archiving this Idea because it's been on the board for well over a year and hasn't received many votes from the community. If you want to raise it again and try to gain more support, you're welcome to do so. We’ve found that pictures and mock-ups can help get concepts across and win more votes from other users. If you have questions or see a connection between this Idea and others, let us know. - Vault product team