topic Re: export PDF without layers in Inventor Programming Forum

export PDF without layers

Anonymous — Tue, 14 Jul 2015 21:10:40 GMT

I have an iLogic function that will export the drawing as a pdf and I can control certain options on the export as well. I was wondering is there a way to control whether or not the exported pdf contains the layer information or not?

Re: export PDF without layers

MechMachineMan — Wed, 15 Jul 2015 19:05:11 GMT

Printing to PDF will not show layers. The only other way I have come across is to have PDF software to flatten the document.

Re: export PDF without layers

Anonymous — Wed, 15 Jul 2015 19:07:48 GMT

I got to looking at the code I am using and I am technically doing a save as and am keeping it vertor format as when it is rasterized as a print it has errors or other sorts with alignments and colors and such.... So it does come out with layers.

Re: export PDF without layers

xiaodong_liang — Thu, 23 Jul 2015 00:57:54 GMT

Hi,

I do not find an option that can enable / disable layers. While I am not clear on what you described in message 3. It sounds you hit a problem where you think it is caused from layer? Could you elaborate the problem? probably we can try to sort how to solve the problem, instead of trying to find option to disable layers.

Re: export PDF without layers

kevin_hay — Thu, 28 Apr 2016 13:46:28 GMT

Hi there.

If the user who raised the initial post is similar to myself, removing layer information is nothing to do with encountering problems, it is much simpler.

Security!

Many firms, including who I work for wish a PDF file to represent the drawing content as it would appear on paper only. Hence we do not wish layer information to be made public as part of the electronic file. This leaves us with two options, the first is to scan a paper drawing which has quality issues, the second is to use an aftermarket PDF solution such as adobe which has limitations as the task cannot be automated via iLogic.

Easy solution is to provide functionality within the PDF export options and API to choose whether you want to embed layer information or not.

Thanks,

Kev.

Re: export PDF without layers

xiaodong_liang — Sun, 08 May 2016 05:34:32 GMT

Hi Kevin,

Thank you for the comments. I can log a wish.

Re: export PDF without layers

xiaodong_liang — Mon, 27 Jun 2016 20:55:57 GMT

just fyi the wish ID # TFS-140221

Re: export PDF without layers

kevin_hay — Mon, 27 Jun 2016 21:35:00 GMT

Thanks!

Re: export PDF without layers

freesbee — Mon, 16 Dec 2019 08:15:37 GMT

...there is also a corresponding idea to vote (and maybe it makes sense to vote also the other related ideas on PDF translator improvements):

PDF Translator flatten layers functionality

@xiaodong_liangmaybe you could pair the wish ID # TFS-140221 to the idea with almost 50 votes?

Re: export PDF without layers

JelteDeJong — Mon, 16 Dec 2019 20:55:08 GMT

Just a thought. you could try to use a pdf-printer instead of the build in pdf export function. maybe layers do not get sent to the printer. (I did not test this but maybe it works)

Re: export PDF without layers

freesbee — Mon, 16 Dec 2019 21:17:38 GMT

@JelteDeJong wrote:
Just a thought. you could try to use a pdf-printer instead of the build in pdf export function. maybe layers do not get sent to the printer. (I did not test this but maybe it works)

Yes, it works (I did test it of course a few years ago), but how do you realize it on 1000+ drawings?

Re: export PDF without layers

JelteDeJong — Mon, 16 Dec 2019 22:41:35 GMT

For batch exporting i have not a complete answer. But i would try to create PostScript-files

Dim doc As DrawingDocument = ThisApplication.ActiveDocument
doc.PrintManager.PrintToFile("c:\temp\testfile.ps")

and then convert the PostScript-files to pdf.

Re: export PDF without layers

Anonymous — Fri, 05 Feb 2021 22:45:17 GMT

@JelteDeJong wrote:
Just a thought. you could try to use a pdf-printer instead of the build in pdf export function. maybe layers do not get sent to the printer. (I did not test this but maybe it works)

I realize this is an old(er) thread, but an additional limitation of Print to PDF (at least the built in one that comes with Windows) is paper size. I exclusively deal with ANSI D-size sheets, and currently the Print to PDF only handles up to ANSI B-Size sheets (11x17, or "Tabloid").

Re: export PDF without layers

tomasz.sztejka — Fri, 09 Sep 2022 05:58:03 GMT

Unfortunately since 2021 the document display name is not sent do printer anymore, so automation is terribly tricky as all prints ends in files with meaningless names.

Re: export PDF without layers

nithin9JMXC — Mon, 26 May 2025 06:25:20 GMT

Following.

Re: export PDF without layers

freesbee — Mon, 26 May 2025 10:19:23 GMT

...the idea I mentioned in message #9 is currently by 128 votes.
Just keep pushing it and maybe something will move in the PDF Translator area...

PDF Translator flatten layers functionality

Re: export PDF without layers

nithin9JMXC — Tue, 27 May 2025 00:32:41 GMT

Hi, thank you @freesbee. But, sorry, I was looking for a built-in option in Inventor if available. Earlier I was doing it in the way you suggested, but the problem with that is, it's time consuming (need to rename, find the right folder directory to save in etc.) Not easy when its lot of files.

Re: export PDF without layers

freesbee — Tue, 27 May 2025 06:04:41 GMT

...and the idea is exactly about "changing the only built in option" of inventor in order to achieve what you want, becasue the current built in option (called PDF Translator) cannot do that.

I suspect your only viable possibility is to vote and promote those ideas, so that soon or later Autodesk will react. That is why I wrote the idea some years ago...

Re: export PDF without layers

g.georgiades — Tue, 03 Jun 2025 11:22:38 GMT

@freesbee @nithin9JMXC There are open source third party libraries that can be used to remove layers from pdfs programatically.

Eg for my company, I have rules that export the pdf with temp_#.pdf using the pdf translator, then use this snippet to flatten it using iText (Inventor 2025+) and then delete the temporary file.

It can easily be baked into multi file pdf exporter rules, programs, etc.

Though the only way to truly make the pdf uneditable is to rasterize it, but then you loose the vector quality and the file size can get larger. Even PDF signing, there are a few ways to get around it if one's goal is to get to hidden graphics underneath a mask.

'Requires iText7+, Inventor 2025+ 'iText is AGPL3! Imports iText.Kernel.Pdf #If False Then 'Hides VB.Net Compiler Error in Visual Studio, but still works with iLogic AddReference "****\itext\itext.io.dll" AddReference "****\itext\itext.kernel.dll" AddReference "System.Drawing.dll" AddReference "PresentationFramework.dll" #End If ''''code to export drawing to pdf 'partial flatten pdf. this removes easy access layer control, but it still allows object control because it does not rasterize! Dim failture As Boolean = false Dim pdoc As PdfDocument = Nothing Try pdoc = New PdfDocument(New PdfReader(oDataMedium.FileName), New PdfWriter(newpdfname)) Dim cat = pdoc.GetCatalog() Dim dict = cat.GetPdfObject().GetAsDictionary(PdfName.OCProperties) If dict.ContainsKey(PdfName.OCGs) Then dict.Remove(PdfName.OCGs) End If Catch failure = True MsgBox("Failed to faltten/rename PDF, do you have the original open?") Finally If pdoc IsNot Nothing Then pdoc.Close() End If End Try If Not failure Then Try System.IO.File.Delete(oDataMedium.FileName) Catch End Try End If