PDF writer

[Anonymous]

We are currently looking at getting new computers to run our Civil 3D. We are also updating some very old software. I was told that Civil 3D has a native PDF writer. We currently have an old version of Adobe (6.0) on our old machines and the print to PDF works. One of our employees loaded Civil 3D on his laptop without any Adobe and he couldn't figure out how to get it to print to PDF. Was he doing something incorrect or do you have to install a PDF writer on your computer? At +$300 a computer for the latest Adobe I want to make sure if it is required or not. Thanks for the help.

[pendean]

In all current AutoCAD versions you can create PDF files in PLOT (driver is called DWG TO PDF), PUBLISH (there is a selection to output to PDF) or click on the bid A and choose Export To PDF, or you can type PDFEXPORT I believe too.

[dmfrazier]

"At +$300 a computer for the latest Adobe I want to make sure if it is required or not."

To expand on pendean's helpful info regarding AutoCAD's built-in PDF capabilities...

AutoCAD's DWG to PDF print driver does a reasonably competent job of producing single or multi-page PDF files, but (for example) there is no way to do any "post-production" stuff like adding, removing, or re-ordering sheets without running the entire print job over again.  Certain file naming functionality is limited as well.

Adobe (or similar PDF creation/editing software) would only be "required" if you need or prefer some of its advanced capabilities and conveniences.  Another option I've seen pop up in discussions here is BlueBeam, which seems to be tailored for CAD. 

There are lots of free PDF drivers for Windows out there (just a Google search away) which also have their limitations but may do some things better than AutoCAD's.  We used CutePDF with 2010, but had some issues with it in 2013.  Fortunately the DWG to PDF driver works better (for us) in 2013 than it had in 2010.  You may want to try a few of them out.