Plotting PDF Underlay - incredible bad Quality

[Anonymous]

Hey!

I have a PDF-Underlay inserted into AutoCad as an external Reference (PDF Underlay).

Nothing else on my Layout but my stamp and the PDF Underlay in a viewport (as it is pasted into Modelspace).

I doesn’t make a difference though whether the PDF is attached directly onto the Layout.

Big Problem:  The quality of the plotted PDF is just not acceptable. The lines of the stamp are totally fine.

The PDF underlay however prints fuzzy / pixelated.

The PDF underlay that is used is of high quality. The PDF underlay displays as high quality inside of AutoCad when zoomed in, also in preview.

Using the default DWG to PDF printer also tried the Adobe printer.

I already tried a lot of stuff:

Changing the viewport settings.

Changing dpi.

Checking all kinds of boxes in the print setup.

Tried to print it to dwf first.

Inserted the PDF as ole.

Different orientations and also 2014 version.

I need to use this PDF. There is not other way really.

Unfortunately, I am not allowed to really post anything from that project either.

Using AutoCad 2015.

I really have no idea what to do anymore.

And I don’t see how it is displayed to badly when plotted while so great while inside of AutoCad.

What I recognized is that in the plotted PDF the PDF underlay is diverted into 4 pictures that I can select with Adobe.

I don’t know how that could help me though.

I thank everybody very much that has any idea, or any help!

I’m really lost here! Any answer much appreciated!

Kind Regards

[agentornge75]

You're right, not ALL PDFs are vector based. Plots of letters aren't. I was
speaking from my experience, which isn't universal. In this forum of design
professionals, however, many PDFs are vector based. Any of my plots from
CAD or Revit are vector based, and in every one of those cases I have this
same problem; the PDFs are fuzzy.

Upon further investigation, if I do crank the vector settings up when I
plot my drawing with a PDF attached TO a PDF, the PDF fuzziness largely
disappears, but the resulting file size is too large (3MB @300dpi,
9MB@1200dpi, and 20MB@2400dpi).

Its still better for me to save as an image. My file ends up around 3.5MB.

[RobDraw]

If you are dealing with vector based PDFs, converting them will eliminate the poor print quality.

[agentornge75]

Rob, converting what? The vector PDF into a non-vector PDF?  Would the attached PDF clarity be then decided by the raster dpi value of  your plotter?

[RobDraw]

Vector PDFs convert to .dwg quite nicely.

[agentornge75]

Ah. gotcha.  Then you lose the ability to update the PDF and have it be automatically reflected in your drawings. You lose that with image plots as well though.  I'd prefer the images over converting, personally.  

thanks for the tip.

[RobDraw]

I'd rather have good plots. You don't lose anything by converting. You can still use the resultant .dwg as reference. In fact, you gain control over the reference with it being native AutoCAD, especially for plotting control.

[agentornge75]

Perhaps that would work on simpler PDFs.  Mine is an extremely large spreadsheet that fills 30"x12" give or take of space with loads of cells and data and took 4 minutes in CAD to convert.  When it was finished, it had moved text out of cells and changed text styles, and even combined some separate text into MTEXT objects that didn't now match up, but it did it haphazardly.  

We don't need to beat a dead horse here, and feel free to use your solutions.  This feature remains half-baked however, and I'll save the 4 minutes and lose 0% quality on the plots printing this PDF to a *.PNG and attaching as an image instead.

[RobDraw]

When talking about vector based PDFs in a design professional type of forum, as you put it, one would think that if we were talking about a PDF of anything other than a line drawing with layers, it would be need to be specified for the basis of conversation. One wouldn't think we were talking about a spread sheet. A spread sheet is a different animal altogether from a design drawing and better off handled with other software. I would expect a table to have more possible problems than a drawing and might require additional steps to get a good output when converting to native AutoCAD. It's an invalid argument against converting vector based PDFs of drawings as being a more reliable and versatile alternative to using an image conversion of a vector PDF.

Either way, I wouldn't use a PDF as a anything more than a temporary reference. Some sort of conversion is necessary and I was only responding because you brought up vector based PDFs, which had not been mentioned before, and I felt that your post needed clarifying as the original PDF files were image based and most of today's PDFs are not vector based and don't need to be unless they are some sort of design drawing.

BTW, the conversion to another type of image file solution was given early in the thread and did not solve the OPs issue.

[agentornge75]

If you're going to assume things regarding a conversation, you get what you get.  Thanks for your condescension though.

Regarding the OPs problem, this is a public forum where people who have similar issues will end up through searches.  I find answers to many problems from people with similar issues (but not exactly the same).  It does solve the very similar issue that I have, and guidance coming from years of wisdom may help others, so I posted about it.  

ultimately, it doesn't matter.  you can do 1 task 10 different ways in CAD, and it's personal preference on which path to take.  I've nothing more to say on this post.  cheers!

[RobDraw]

Don't go away mad... I was not condescending at all, oh wise one. I was just clarifying incorrect information and providing additional information where needed.

[joey.dangelo]

Hey there, 

I just read all these threads and scoured the internet.  Nothing solved my problem, but this is the exact problem I was having.  I was inserting product spec sheets into a drawing set in model space for reference on an architectural project.  When I would plot to PDF with 3 or 4 viewports from paper space into model space, with the PDF underlays in each viewport, the resultant sheet when plotted to PDF was pixelated.  I was able to make things look better though.  It's far from perfect, but much improved!

In the plot dialog box, next to the name of the printer/plotter, I clicked on properties.  I was using "adobe PDF" as the named printer.  Once you click properties, I clicked on "Custom Properties."  In the Adobe PDF Document Properties dialog box that pops up, the default setting is "standard."  Click on this and scroll down to "High Quality Print."  

While it's not perfect, its markedly improved and usable when compared to my original results.  I hope this helps! 

[fpensa]

Hi there,

So, september 2019, same problem than the original in 2014...

Using Autocad 2019, I imported a vector PDF, the PDF importer tool, native in Autocad, import and convert the PDF to a block.

I exploded the block, the lines are indeed polylines, all on the 0 layer, no weird printing settings...

Everything looks nice in the drawing, I printed using DWG to PDF, maximum quality, the results are blurred and frankly unreadable.

I repeat, the PDF looks to have been properly converted into cad

Any idea?

[RobDraw]

Different problem. The OP was printing an XREFd PDF.

You should start a new thread.

[fpensa]

Back in 2014 I don't think the PDF to CAD importer was available yet. The problem looks pretty much the same, I tried all the advices in the conversation with no result.

Anyway, if you're interested, I just found out what seems to be a solution: print the viewports containing the converted PDF in 2D Wireframe view set. That looks the only setting which vector print the PDF converted lines. All the others viewtype print those lines like raster.

My problem is that I have a point cloud heat map in the view and 2D wireframe is the only viewtype not printing point clouds. So, im my situation, I had to create a second viewports superposed to the first one, move the point cloud away from the PDF in the working space, and set the views one to 2D wireframe and the second one with the point cloud to conceptual view.

It worked for me but what a pain!

[francisCF8NF]

I've had the same issue and found that if you select "TrueType as text" in the graphics section of plotter setting, this solves the problem. Hope this helps.