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BUGGY SOFTWARE - markups not legible when printing

9 REPLIES 9
Reply
Message 1 of 10
ross.smith
366 Views, 9 Replies

BUGGY SOFTWARE - markups not legible when printing

Can I ask why Design Review 2008 was released with the black & white view bugs present?

When viewing a drawing in black & white mode, markups are still shown in their original colours. When printing in black and white mode the same problem occurs. This means for DWF's displaying on screen with a black background and using light coloured markups, those markups are practically invisible when printed. When those colours are the standard for your industry this presents a major problem.

There is a very real danger that information on drawings will be missed when using Design Review 2008, and this was pointed out in Beta. I've just tested and found that the exact same bug is present in DWF Viewer 7.

For years we have been stuck using DWF Viewer 4 and Volo View Express as newer versions of these programs would not run on our network. Now the new versions are available and do work, we find the bugs in them make them unusable.

Sice DWF viewer 4 no longer views the latest DWF's, and the risk of loosing information is too great for us to install the newer versions, as a company we have no reliable way of viewing and printing DWF's.

Once again it appears that Autodesk have taken a great idea and dropped the ball, leaving us with half baked, unusable software.

Despite the unsuitability of PDF as a drawing format, we are still having to use PDF markup software internally. For the last 2-3 years Autodesk have been pusing DWF as the ideal drawing format, yet have consistently been unable to produce reliable software to back that up.

At the very least, can we have a timescale for the release of a fix for this bug.
9 REPLIES 9
Message 2 of 10
Anonymous
in reply to: ross.smith

Thank you for participating in the beta. When this was brought up during
beta, we looked at it. If we had fixed this, we would have introduced other
problems. As you have astutely noted, this problem has existed for a long
time - you found it in DWF Viewer 7.0. Over 12 million people downloaded DWF
Viewer 7.0. They don't consider the software unusable. While every customer
situation is different, and we try to address as many problems as we can, we
can't correct them all. This issue is being investigated for an upcoming
release. We have no immediate plans to do a service pack, but things
sometimes change.

wrote in message news:5564933@discussion.autodesk.com...
Can I ask why Design Review 2008 was released with the black & white view
bugs present?

When viewing a drawing in black & white mode, markups are still shown in
their original colours. When printing in black and white mode the same
problem occurs. This means for DWF's displaying on screen with a black
background and using light coloured markups, those markups are practically
invisible when printed. When those colours are the standard for your
industry this presents a major problem.

There is a very real danger that information on drawings will be missed when
using Design Review 2008, and this was pointed out in Beta. I've just
tested and found that the exact same bug is present in DWF Viewer 7.

For years we have been stuck using DWF Viewer 4 and Volo View Express as
newer versions of these programs would not run on our network. Now the new
versions are available and do work, we find the bugs in them make them
unusable.

Sice DWF viewer 4 no longer views the latest DWF's, and the risk of loosing
information is too great for us to install the newer versions, as a company
we have no reliable way of viewing and printing DWF's.

Once again it appears that Autodesk have taken a great idea and dropped the
ball, leaving us with half baked, unusable software.

Despite the unsuitability of PDF as a drawing format, we are still having to
use PDF markup software internally. For the last 2-3 years Autodesk have
been pusing DWF as the ideal drawing format, yet have consistently been
unable to produce reliable software to back that up.

At the very least, can we have a timescale for the release of a fix for this
bug.
Message 3 of 10
Anonymous
in reply to: ross.smith

Scott Sheppard (Autodesk) wrote:
> Thank you for participating in the beta. When this was brought up during
> beta, we looked at it. If we had fixed this, we would have introduced other
> problems. As you have astutely noted, this problem has existed for a long
> time - you found it in DWF Viewer 7.0. Over 12 million people downloaded DWF
> Viewer 7.0. They don't consider the software unusable.
_All_ 12 million are _using_ & like it? Are you sure? Where did you get
that statistic from?

I'm reminded of the statement by AOL that there software was being used
by X amounts people. What they failed to mention was how many of those
were using the free months of usage & how many signed up to pay at the
end of the trial.

Don't get me wrong, I like the free software (would have preferred a
separate viewer for v8, though) but when you come up falsehoods like
that, it does rankle & raise questions.

While every customer
> situation is different, and we try to address as many problems as we can, we
> can't correct them all.
1. Why not?
2. Should it have been a problem in the first place?

This issue is being investigated for an upcoming
> release. We have no immediate plans to do a service pack, but things
> sometimes change.
>
> wrote in message news:5564933@discussion.autodesk.com...
> Can I ask why Design Review 2008 was released with the black & white view
> bugs present?
>
> When viewing a drawing in black & white mode, markups are still shown in
> their original colours. When printing in black and white mode the same
> problem occurs. This means for DWF's displaying on screen with a black
> background and using light coloured markups, those markups are practically
> invisible when printed. When those colours are the standard for your
> industry this presents a major problem.
>
> There is a very real danger that information on drawings will be missed when
> using Design Review 2008, and this was pointed out in Beta. I've just
> tested and found that the exact same bug is present in DWF Viewer 7.
>
> For years we have been stuck using DWF Viewer 4 and Volo View Express as
> newer versions of these programs would not run on our network. Now the new
> versions are available and do work, we find the bugs in them make them
> unusable.
>
> Sice DWF viewer 4 no longer views the latest DWF's, and the risk of loosing
> information is too great for us to install the newer versions, as a company
> we have no reliable way of viewing and printing DWF's.
>
> Once again it appears that Autodesk have taken a great idea and dropped the
> ball, leaving us with half baked, unusable software.
>
> Despite the unsuitability of PDF as a drawing format, we are still having to
> use PDF markup software internally. For the last 2-3 years Autodesk have
> been pusing DWF as the ideal drawing format, yet have consistently been
> unable to produce reliable software to back that up.
>
> At the very least, can we have a timescale for the release of a fix for this
> bug.
Message 4 of 10
Anonymous
in reply to: ross.smith

We keep track of DWF Viewer downloads. You are correct in that's how many
times it's been downloaded, not necessarily how many unique users there are.
If one guy downloaded it 12 million times, we'd have 12 million downloads
with one user. On the other hand, if one person downloads it, puts it on his
company network, and everyone else installs from the local copy, we have
only one download but a bunch of users. So the results can go both ways. My
point is that the software has a defect - markups print in color instead of
black and white. IMHO this does not make it useless. You are free to
disagree. My point is that the software, even with this defect that has
existed for quite some time, appears to meet at least some people's needs -
otherwise it wouldn't have been downloaded so many times. If it odes not
meet your needs, I agree that you should not use it.

"Dave F." wrote in message
news:5568358@discussion.autodesk.com...
Scott Sheppard (Autodesk) wrote:
> Thank you for participating in the beta. When this was brought up during
> beta, we looked at it. If we had fixed this, we would have introduced
> other
> problems. As you have astutely noted, this problem has existed for a long
> time - you found it in DWF Viewer 7.0. Over 12 million people downloaded
> DWF
> Viewer 7.0. They don't consider the software unusable.
_All_ 12 million are _using_ & like it? Are you sure? Where did you get
that statistic from?

I'm reminded of the statement by AOL that there software was being used
by X amounts people. What they failed to mention was how many of those
were using the free months of usage & how many signed up to pay at the
end of the trial.

Don't get me wrong, I like the free software (would have preferred a
separate viewer for v8, though) but when you come up falsehoods like
that, it does rankle & raise questions.

While every customer
> situation is different, and we try to address as many problems as we can,
> we
> can't correct them all.
1. Why not?
2. Should it have been a problem in the first place?

This issue is being investigated for an upcoming
> release. We have no immediate plans to do a service pack, but things
> sometimes change.
>
> wrote in message news:5564933@discussion.autodesk.com...
> Can I ask why Design Review 2008 was released with the black & white view
> bugs present?
>
> When viewing a drawing in black & white mode, markups are still shown in
> their original colours. When printing in black and white mode the same
> problem occurs. This means for DWF's displaying on screen with a black
> background and using light coloured markups, those markups are practically
> invisible when printed. When those colours are the standard for your
> industry this presents a major problem.
>
> There is a very real danger that information on drawings will be missed
> when
> using Design Review 2008, and this was pointed out in Beta. I've just
> tested and found that the exact same bug is present in DWF Viewer 7.
>
> For years we have been stuck using DWF Viewer 4 and Volo View Express as
> newer versions of these programs would not run on our network. Now the
> new
> versions are available and do work, we find the bugs in them make them
> unusable.
>
> Sice DWF viewer 4 no longer views the latest DWF's, and the risk of
> loosing
> information is too great for us to install the newer versions, as a
> company
> we have no reliable way of viewing and printing DWF's.
>
> Once again it appears that Autodesk have taken a great idea and dropped
> the
> ball, leaving us with half baked, unusable software.
>
> Despite the unsuitability of PDF as a drawing format, we are still having
> to
> use PDF markup software internally. For the last 2-3 years Autodesk have
> been pusing DWF as the ideal drawing format, yet have consistently been
> unable to produce reliable software to back that up.
>
> At the very least, can we have a timescale for the release of a fix for
> this
> bug.
Message 5 of 10
ross.smith
in reply to: ross.smith

Aye, much as I hate to say it, I agree with Scott on this one.

It's an annoyance for me personally, but if nobody else has spotted it despite 12,000,000 downloads I guess most people aren't so worried about it.
Message 6 of 10
Anonymous
in reply to: ross.smith

The Black and White printing bug created in DwfViewer7 and not fixed in
sp1 is finally fixed in DesignReview2008.

It did cost me (and others) many hours to convince Autodesk that this
'black and white printing' was a serious bug while Autodesk did hold on
to the bromide "as designed". To print a colored dwf made in Autocad it
did take 17 clicks (if I remember correctly), in DwfViewer 6.5 only 4
clicks.

After fixing the bug a new bug was introduced. The markup will be
printed in color in a black and white print. A second bug print the
background of the markup in an opposite color.
When printing without changing any other setting then the black and
white setting the markup will be printed with a black background and red
text. This makes it hard to read.

Autodesk did decided to release DesignReview including this known bug.

As work around the markup can be made without a background and with dark
text.

Jan
Message 7 of 10
jswitze
in reply to: ross.smith

How do I change the markup to not have a background color? I just got done marking up a drawing and all of the balloons printed with red text in a black background. Totally unreadable.

It pisses me off when Autodesk sends out software with bugs (the default settings should work) and then doesn't create a patch. We should bill them for all the lost time they cause.
Message 8 of 10
tim.clark
in reply to: ross.smith

With a Markup Tool selected, you should be able to change the line color of the markup, the text color of the markup text, and the fill color (and amount of transparency) of the markup tag by selecting the appropriate Toolbar icons. Once you have selected these options, they will persist (they are stored in the Registry, so they will persist across sessions of ADR).
Message 9 of 10
jswitze
in reply to: ross.smith

tclark, Thank you for your suggestion.

It looks like I can draw a circle and then put text in it, and then draw a line from it to create a bubble, and it will print.

If I use one of the bubbles with a leader, it doesn't matter what settings I use, it prints black.

It is very unintuitive to have to change the options from the title bar. I'm used to the more typical user interface where you right click on the item or group of items you are trying to change the properties for and it lets you change them. Message was edited by: jswitze
Message 10 of 10
jswitze
in reply to: ross.smith

It appears that the problem occurs with dwf files produced by Inventor 2008, but not with dwf files produced by AutoCAD Mechanical 2008.

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