Strange lines and joins in PDF export

[daniel.simon]

I'm seeing strange artifacts in PDF exports from my drawing. Corners are joined with small boxes appearing at intersections. I haven't had luck changing the corner join options in the CTB. Also, some of the hatched/filled regions are showing very strange thick lines and artifcacts at the joins and corners.

You can see an example of the boxes at the corners and joins in this screenshot from Adobe Illustrator CS5 of a region from "Dvc Layer 3". In this case, the PDF looks correct, just with these boxes everywhere.

And the strange thick lines and joins from this screenshot of "Dvc Layer 2". Here, the PDF does not match the DWG. Note the gaps betweent the "fingers" are all different sizes.

I'm attaching...

- the DWG

- the exported PDF (through the Export dialog, not the Print to PDF option) from the DWG layout

- the CTB I'm using

- two screenshots from Adobe Illustrator CS5

(all zipped into one file)

Does anyone have any suggestions for me? How do I get the PDF output to look just like the layout I've defined in AutoCAD?

I'm using AutoCAD 2013 Mac on a Retina MBP with 10.8.4.

Thanks in advance for all the help!

Best,

/Daniel

[tbennett]

I haven't looked at your files, but can you publish instead of plot and see what you get?

[pendean]

Why have I seen this question before, but not with your log-in name?
is this a repost?

[tbennett]

If the problem hasn't been solved, does it matter?

[pendean]

If this is a repost I'd like to see what else was offered for solutions, so that we all don't simply repeat it all over again.

[tbennett]

Sorry, I use R2011 and cannot open your files.  I tried to convert them but they were made in an educational version, which TrueView willnot convert.

[tbennett]

Good answer.

[pendean]

OP is using EDU software: there is no need to 'convert' them to use them, just avoid copying any content from them into your files.

you can't be skiddish about EDU files if you plan on helping others around here 🙂

[tbennett]

I tried to open it, but I have R2011.  No can do.  I suspect he created it in R2013.

[daniel.simon]

OP here... First, thanks for digging into this. It's not a repost (as far as I know). I couldn't find anything like it in the forum.

As for the version, I did use R2013 Mac with an academic license. I'll try the publish method tomorrow morning and see what I can get.

[tbennett]

OK, here's a wild guess.  It's a long story so stay with me.

I had a drawing with goofy dots and crap.  I tried QTEXT because you can find empty text boxes that way.  I tried a DELETE ALL and unselected what I wanted.  No dice.

One day, I was fooling around with annotative objects - we don't really use them yet.  I changed my dimensions styles and my text styles to annotative and gave them a good paper size.  Then I used the ANNOUPDATE command to update them.  Boom!  Some leftover empty attributes from blocks that were exploded popped up.  I deleted them and my print problems went away.

It's a longshot, but hey, that's how I roll.

[pendean]

I'm looking at your DWG file and they match the close-ups you postred of your PDFs, except for the large ink spots at the corners of the hollow 'layer 3' screenshot.

I changed your objects and Layers LWEIGHT settings from 'default' to 0.00 and now your Layout looks like your PDF.

[daniel.simon]

I just tried three methods to change the lineweight to 0.0: in the ctb file, select all and change to 0.0 on the model, and the same on the layout. I'm still seeing the little blocks in the corners.

I looked at the last poster's attachment, and the pdf does look correct. However, when I try to export to PDF using the poster's version of the DWG, it gives me the usual blocks in the corners.

Perhaps this is a Mac vs PC issue. The last poster used the "DWG to PDF.pc3" plotter, which isn't used (or even installed) on Mac.

Any further suggestions out there? Maybe this is a CTB or plotter issue?

[tbennett]

Can you try it on a different computer?

Do you have Adobe or some similar program for distilling (creating) PDF files?

I would not use export to PDF.  I would set up a PDF plotter and PUBLISH using this plotter.  Even DWG to PDF.pc3 can have issues.

[pendean]

you might need to post in the MAC forum then: you will mostly run into Windows users elsewhere, regardless of this forum's topic. Sorry, just not enough of y'all to go around sadly.

[daniel.simon · Accepted solution]

Thanks for the tip to try the Mac forum. I've got a solution! Basically, it had to with my use of regions, and the scaling I was attempting on the layout.

Check out the solution here.