Blank page when plot preview & export to pdf

[Anonymous]

Hey,

Excuse my awkwardness but I'm self taught on AutoCAD & have managed fine for last few months but have encountered an issue this evening I can't resolve.  I've produced drawings, basic they may be, but when preview them the actual drawing area is barely noticable & when export to pdf it practically prints a blank page.  I have very simple items in drawing, stockpiles, excavations test locations, and have been producing pdf's fine, even as recently as this morning using the same cadfile.  But what ever I've managed to do since then has changed something and I can't resolve the issue.  Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[dmfrazier]

Check the status toggles along the bottom of the application window.  Maybe one of these was inadvertently turned off/on?

Could you post a screenshot of what your plot dialog looks like and/or the plot preview?

[Anonymous]

I've attached few screen shots.  Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[Alfred.NESWADBA]

Hi,

Just guessing:

a) don't set your printarea to "Extents", use "Layout" instead (in the plot dialog)

b) turn off "plot transparency" (in the plot dialog)

c) start layermanager and verify that no layer is set to "no plot"

d) if you want a PDF, then don't use the Brother printer, use the "DWG to PDF.pc3" as printer/plotter.

If nothing helps then try to upload the drawing, might help us if we can look into it.

HTH, - alfred -

[Anonymous]

Hey,

I've managed to print what I wanted to, but I've done it differently from what has been working for me all along (whether its correct procedure or not i'm not sure).  When I wanted to create a pdf I normally would have selected export then pdf instead of selecting dwg to pdf in the plot dialog box.  Also, when I am in my drawing and I double click on my mouse scroller, the page zooms way out & my work is a dot in the corner of the screen.  I'm assuming I've something else in the drawing somewhere which I can't find or else I've managed to modify settings some how, as previously when I double clicked mouse scroller my work was the full of the screen.  I've attached the DWG file if it makes things any easier.  Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[Alfred.NESWADBA · Accepted solution]

Hi,

if you have the layout active (in paperspace) run command _ZOOM _EXTENTS ==> you'll see ... nothing, at least it looks like nothing, BUT press now <CTRL> <A> (equal to select all) ==> now you'll see some grips *) on the lower half (that is your layout) and some in the upper half .. that are 76 points far away from your layout, and so every plot that uses "Extents" as plot area look like your display (empty without grips). That's why I suggested to plot the "Layout" content and not the "Extents" area.

*) If you don't see the grips then raise your gripobject limit (sysvar GRIPOBJLIMIT to > 200.

TIP: you can use _QSELECT to select only those points, delete them, then _ZOOM _EXTENTS works like you estimated it (and functions doing _ZOOM _EXTENTS too).

HTH, - alfred -

[Anonymous]

Problem sorted.  Thanks Alfred, some very useful commands I didn't know.  Very much appreciated!!!

[mfcamachos]

Thanks Alfred. Your tips hel me as well.

[dldfrontoffice]

Bro i can not for my life understand what your solution is, please explain a bit more for us slow learners. I am about to shoot my self at how frustrated i am at this stupid autocad for not printing my draws

[Alfred.NESWADBA]

Hi,

>> what your solution is

The solution could be to identify objects that are misplaced/far away from your basic geometry ... and then every zoom-extents shows an empty screen (well, not really empty, the items are just to far away to see them), Same can happen with plot-extents, the plot looks like empty.

So typing <CTRL><A> shows grips for objects ==> these grips are big enough to see them even if the objects are far away (on zoom-extents screen) ... so this is just one method to get rid of such geometry.

HTH, - alfred -

[WORKPLAYLOVE]

Thank you Alfred,

It was the transpareny that fixed my issue. At our company, for whatever reason, the Xerox copier doesn't understand the transparency command so it doesnt plot correctly. Our OCE large plotter does, which explains why its not an issue with that one. Also explains why save as pdf plots correctly on the Xerox, since its only printing an image at that point.

Anyways, thanks much. 

[WORKPLAYLOVE]

Thank you Alfred,

It was the transpareny that fixed my issue. At our company, for whatever reason, the Xerox copier doesn't understand the transparency command so it doesnt plot correctly. Our OCE large plotter does, which explains why its not an issue with that one. Also explains why save as pdf plots correctly on the Xerox, since its only printing an image at that point.

Anyways, thanks much.

[Anonymous]

In preview, my object can showed. But in pdf it is a blank page.

Help me please.

Thanks before.

[Alfred.NESWADBA]

Hi,

>> In preview, my object can showed.

The drawing is empty. The only item in the layout is the viewport and plotting that layout to PDF's does show the viewport's border.

- alfred -

[dmfrazier]

Command: LIST

Select objects: all
3 found
2 were not in current space.

Select objects:

                  3DSOLID   Layer: "0"
                            Space: Model space
                   Handle = 2a2
         History = None
    Show History = No
   Bounding Box: Lower Bound X = 0.0000   , Y = 0.0000   , Z = 0.0000
                 Upper Bound X = 0.0000   , Y = 0.0000   , Z = 0.0000

Hmmm.  What happened to your object?

[leojk]

No, your solution doesn't work.

It's in LAYOUT, and not in Extents.

And there are no handles. Everything is inside margins.

[Anonymous]

I have a paperspace drawing that has 4 viewports on it. When I plot to dwg to pdf.pc3 the two viewports on left has no drawings in them and the two viewports on right has drawings in them. I have it plotting to zoom layout. What could I be doing wrong?

[Alfred.NESWADBA]

Hi,

>> I have a paperspace drawing that has 4 viewports on it. When I plot to dwg to pdf.pc3

>> the two viewports on left has no drawings in them and the two viewports on right

>> has drawings in them.

Thousands of possible reasons, layers VPFrozen, viewport set to off, zoomed to wrong coordinates, zoomed out too far, zoomed in to close, annotative objects for other scales,linetypescale wrong, ...

Please don't let us now guess some days long, if you can upload your drawing we will get the reason in minutes.

- alfred -

[dmfrazier]

There are lots of possible reasons for this.

The best thing to do in cases like this is to post a copy of your DWG, if you can.

You say you are plotting to PDF. Do you get different results when you plot to another plotter/printer or a different file format?

Is there anything about the objects in the views that don't plot that is different from the objects in the views that do plot?

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the info. I tried several different things but whatever I done it works now. My coworker could see it on his computer but I could not. He has an older version of windows. So thanks! Kudos.... Linda