DWG to PDF issues

[ehansel]

Hello,

I recently came across an issue where when I plot using the DWG to PDF option in Autocad the drawing come out with messed up line weights. When the PDF initially opens any angled or curved lines appear way lighter than any straight lines. When you print or zoom in the issue goes away and it is clear that everything is the same. I need the PDF to appear this way on the computer without being zoomed in though. I have searched for solutions to this issue and have not found anything. 

[Alfred.NESWADBA]

Hi,

What PDF-viewer have you used? Or where do you see differences in the PDF?

That's my screenshot of your PDF:

And I can't find differences between curved and straight lines.

I have viewed it with Acrobat Reader and with the built in viewer of Firefox.

- alfred -

[ehansel]

Hi, thanks for the reply. 

I open the PDF in adobe acrobat pro. The issue isn't that the lines are different line weights, they show up correctly when I zoom in and print. The issue is that they do not appear this way when initally opening the file. I took a capture of what it looks like on my screen when opening the file. I circled the main issues in blue. In my capture you should be able to see that all the doors and curved lines appear to show up much fainter than other lines. 

[Alfred.NESWADBA]

Hi,

>> The issue is that they do not appear this way when initally opening the file

I can see it in your screenshot where you marked it, for me/on my desktop opening the original file from your first post does not show that issue.

So I guess it might have to do something with antialiasing-settings of your graphic card or with Acrobat (or it's settings).

Sorry, I can't reproduce that and so I can't test with it.

Hoping that another one can see the same issue and help then ... good luck, - alfred -

[ehansel]

Thanks, I will have to do some digging around in settings and see if something fixes it. 

Also, do you open the original PDF with Acrobat as well? 

This has just been so troubling to me because I have other PDFs that do not do this. So It's making me think that the issue has something with the way autocad is plotting the PDF versus how the PDF is being viewed. 

I am attaching another captured image to show a more extreme case of this issue as well as another image from a PDF where the issue does not seem to be happening. 

[pendean]

Garb another brand of PDF driver and test: if all you use is Acrobat nothing is going to be different. Grab the freeware FOXIT READER if you are at a loss for one.
On my phone your PDF Lineweights show no variations here either.

[ehansel]

I downloaded Foxit reader and well the issue is not there. So thank you.

However, that must mean that this issue has something to do with Adobe. Does anyone have a fix for this? My boss is asking what the cause of this is so that some clients who do not print out drawings and only view them in PDF don't get confused. 

Thanks

[Alfred.NESWADBA]

Hi,

>> that must mean that this issue has something to do with Adobe

One step more ... it has to do something with Acrobat, as I saw no problems viewing your file with Adobe Reader (my mistake in the above post: I meant "Adobe Reader" and not "Acrobat Reader").

>> My boss is asking what the cause of this is so that some clients who do not print out drawings and only view them in PDF don't get confused.

I guess most customers will have the Adobe Reader (or other viewers) installed, but not Acrobat.

Anyway ... one problem can be seen when zooming deep into your PDF (look to the attached screenshot). There are not different lineweights, but some arcs are a little bit shifted.

There are some threads handling that problem with the result to use some alternative PDF-printer driver, I had success with >>>PDF Creator<<< in such cases.

HTH, - alfred -

[pendean · Accepted solution]

>>>... that this issue has something to do with Adobe...<<<
Pretty much.

Here are two tips to fix the display problem, neither has anything to do with AutoCAD or your control over the clients PCs:
http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/AutoCAD-Electrical/Auto-Publish-to-PDF-Poor-quality/m-p/4702961#M33582
http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/AutoCAD-Electrical/Auto-Publish-to-PDF-Poor-quality/m-p/4707149#M33613

Document which works and start sharing with your clients. Or switch to sharing DWF files if that is an option.

[ehansel]

Thank you very much for the replies.

Unchecking "Smooth Line Art" did the trick. The curved lines do not look very nice, but that is something we will have to deal with at the moment haha.

I am also wondering if PDFCreator is reccommended over the DWG to PDF driver? Or is this something that can only really be solved through the Adobe Reader Preferences? (I have acrobat pro on my school computer but adobe reader on my work computer)

It just confuses me that some PDF files would show up without this issue, while the most recent ones do. The same happens on my bosses computer. So for now the Adobe preferences change will have to do.

[pendean]

The driver being used to create the PDFs doesn't seem to make a difference in Acrobat from what I have observed.

[ehansel]

Okay, I wasn't sure if there was a way to solve this problem from the source. But since it seems to just be an adobe reader issue then I guess it wouldn't matter how the PDF is created. So that makes sense.

Thanks again for the fast help!