Inventor Printing - PDF Export - ALL PAGES

[Anonymous]

When using the built in Print to PDF function in Inventor, or any other print function, the default option should be print all pages, not just current page.  Many times we work with multi sheet documents, and printing only current page as a default results in lots of messed up printouts.  Since the settings are not visible without pressing the options button (compare to MS Word 2010) we don't think about the trouble we are getting into until its too late. 

Thank you,

jvj

[Anonymous]

Phew! Now all I have to do is update to 2017...

[Anonymous]

Not fixed all the way.

Yes, it does appear to keep the Print Range settings, but the other settings (All colors as black/ Remove object line weights) still get reset. Every. Time.

Why did Autodesk only go halfway with this improvement? I was pretty excited to see this happen.

[JamieVJohnson2]

Agreed, the person working on this feature should have done all the way with it.  Personally I still see it as a stop gap, to what they really need to do, which is make a better print/preview/settings interface all together.

[dougnano]

I agree; I - and every engineer I work with who uses Inventor - have been annoyed with this for years. We want ALL the print settings to persist once we change them!  Many times I've had vendors call me up because they don't have all the sheets of a PDF because I forgot to check "Print all pages", or because they can't make out a feature because I forgot to check "remove line weights." This has wasted much of our time and of our vendors' time. Please fix this all the way.

One other bone I have to pick: a few years ago on this thread, Dan Szymanski said on this thread that he didn't want to change the original default to "print all pages" because some customers might object.  Maybe - but I doubt it.  Why?  Well just think: The vast majority of applications (especially Microsoft Office) have the original default set to "print all pages", so this is already common. Yes, that can be very annoying - but only if it causes you to accidentally print out all pages of a large document.  Mechanical drawings are typically not large documents; in the last 15 years I've shared mechanical drawings with dozens of mechanical designers from around the world and from many industries, and NONE that I have worked with ever created drawings with so many sheets that it would be an annoyance to accidentally print them all out when only intending to print one sheet.  The majority of drawings I come across have only 1 sheet, and only rarely do I see drawings with more than 4 or 5 sheets.

Most apps on the market today default to "print all pages" - even apps like Word in which it can be common to have very large documents that you don't want to print all of. Inventor is perhaps the LEAST likely of any program that I know of to contain overly large print documents, and at the same time it's also the MOST likely app where the user does NOT want to forget to print ALL the pages - because if a sheet is missing it's easy for a vendor to not notice that, and thus never see critical drawing details that may be on page 2 or 3.  This kind of thing can cost serious $$$ if not caught in time.

[mikeb456]

Close but no cigar ... need all the settings to persist ... in my case "All colors as black" is THE one.

[mmoucka]

Good evening.

For me is necessary always print the complete documentation (all pages).

I'm using automatic print over macro for 1 file and group of files too (the macros are detecting a page properties, set the printer parameters and print to specific virtual printer into multi pages tiff.)

Why is the one/all pages printing possibility not switchable in application configuration or the switching possibility is not on both places ? (Application config and Printing Dialog too).

I have not any possibility to set it during automatic printing with helpful of the macros, because I have not found any possibility also straight in the VBA. Why please ?

Now I must detect, whether is the drawing multi page or not and the multi page do not print, and report it like not printable (You must manually).

During long time I got like the user with every newer version of Inventor much good and also some useless functions.

But what is sad, that some the basic and very necessary functions are many years still in the nappies.

This is the one.

Thank You very much and have a nice day.

[JamieVJohnson2]

I love this thread, for those of you looking for some code (vb.net) to use in a batch routine, I have this.  The object batchFile is a class I created to hold various file names, data and instances, but for the purposes here, its value PDFFile is a string path and full file name.  drawDoc is an Inventor IDW or DWG drawing document.

   'export file to PDF using 'all sheets', 'default sizes', 'file name - Rev name' (keep color)
                            Dim PDFAddin As TranslatorAddIn
                            PDFAddin = invApp.ApplicationAddIns.ItemById("{0AC6FD96-2F4D-42CE-8BE0-8AEA580399E4}")
                            Dim tContext As TranslationContext
                            tContext = invApp.TransientObjects.CreateTranslationContext
                            tContext.Type = IOMechanismEnum.kFileBrowseIOMechanism
                            Dim nvmOptions As NameValueMap
                            nvmOptions = invApp.TransientObjects.CreateNameValueMap
                            Dim dm As DataMedium
                            dm = invApp.TransientObjects.CreateDataMedium
                            'create PDFprint filename
                            Dim rev As String = drawDoc.PropertySets.Item("Inventor Summary Information").Item("Revision Number").Value
                            batchFile.Revision = rev
                            batchFile.PDFFile = CreatePDFFilePath(batchFile.InputFile.FullName, batchFile.Revision)
                            'project path
                            Dim dirName As String = System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName(batchFile.PDFFile)
                            System.IO.Directory.CreateDirectory(dirName)
                            If PDFAddin.HasSaveCopyAsOptions(drawDoc, tContext, nvmOptions) Then
                                With nvmOptions
                                    .Value("All_Color_AS_Black") = 0
                                    .Value("Remove_Line_Weights") = 0
                                    .Value("Vector_Resolution") = 400
                                    .Value("Sheet_Range") = Inventor.PrintRangeEnum.kPrintAllSheets
                                End With
                                dm.FileName = batchFile.PDFFile
                                'replace old files:
                                Try
                                    If System.IO.File.Exists(batchFile.PDFFile) Then
                                        Dim fiPDF As New System.IO.FileInfo(batchFile.PDFFile)
                                        ClearFileAttributes(fiPDF)
                                        fiPDF.Delete()
                                    End If
                                    PDFAddin.SaveCopyAs(drawDoc, tContext, nvmOptions, dm)
                                    batchFile.PDFFile = batchFile.PDFFile 'this will force a check to see if the file exists, without us doing so
                                Catch ex As Exception
                                    MsgBox("Error removing or writing file; perhaps existing file can't be overwritten.  Skipping file." & vbCr & batchFile.PDFFile)
                                    batchFile.Errors += " File not printed to PDF."
                                End Try
                            End If

[mmoucka]

INTERESTING. 🙂

But I need print to tiff file.

Thank You much.

[AndyWallace]

I am sorry this still has not been implemented the way users have asked for. Inventor seems to remember what we don't want (like the directory I was LAST working in, when I am in a new one today), and forget what we do want (like printing options).

Please make the options for "all pages", "lineweights" and "colors" sticky.

In fact making all dialogs "sticky" would be a huge improvement across the board.

Andy

[Anonymous]

I`m also missing this functionality in Inventor... This costs my company tons of money in time for re-exporting the file. Should the Inventor be a full/part-open software this problems and many others would be already solved and with no cost to Autodesk.

[Anonymous]

Actively using Inventor Pro 2017.3 build 233 and still have to change the PDF export OPTIONS each and every .idw.  None of the OPTIONS a THRU c seem to be happening though it sounded like it was taking in the previous topic discussion from 2013.

What current work-around and methods are users using to generate .pdf packages while ensuring the .idw is updated before the pdf is generated.  iLogic?

Hearing the old timers complain gives me motivation to get our method as painless as possible.

[JamieVJohnson2]

I still use my package generator. It requires the user to check their work into vault. Then as it prepares to PDF the work, it downloads the latest version from vault, and forces overwrite, making vault version the master version. Then it opens the files by deferring all updates, so that what you saw when you checked it in, is what you get.

[tommy-z]

Hehehehehe - this is 'hillarious'!

The quite obvious mistake, i.e that 'Print All Sheets' is not the default (and cannot be set as default), was marked "Status changed to: Under Review" on "03-25-2013 12:00 PM"

We are now in may, 2020 🙂 🙂 🙂 

[Carson_Gus]

This may have been implemented at some point but I can confirm for the 2020 and 2021 releases that this no longer performs as intended.

Inventor will only remember print range preference on the document it is set on and nothing else. If the document is closed and re-opens, it defaults back to "Current sheet".

At no point over extended use can I have Inventor to set my default PDF preference to "All sheets", either at the document level or the application level.

Please investigate.