Preview prints splines and lines incorrectly

[Anonymous]

Hello,

Hopefully someone would be kind enough to help solve the following problem - 

When printing out a drawing, consisting of lines, arcs and splines, I seem to have developed a consistent error with the final print - the arcs print fine but the lines and splines are inaccurate, sometimes wildly.

I use AutoCad Lt for Mac 2018

OS El Capitan version 10.11.6

The drawing is all on the same layer

Line weight set at 0.00mm

Continuous line type

Single colour

The arcs and circles print out according to the specifications above. The lines print out thicker. The splines print out thicker and very inaccurately (wobbly and zig-zaggy).

The errors are visible when I preview the plot and once I've printed out a copy.

I've never experienced anything like this before and have searched for an answer over the last couple of days - getting a bit desperate now!

I'm attaching a very basic example of the problem as dwg and pdf.

Thanks in advance for any help or pointers.

Matt

[ChrisPreece · Accepted solution]

Hi @Anonymous,

I see you're posting for the first time. Welcome to the Autodesk Community, and thank you for posting your question here in the AutoCAD for Mac forum.

Can you tell me which .pc3 you're using to plot to PDF?

I found that I could reproduce the issue if I select DWG to PDF in the Plotter Name drop down menu. But, if I instead choose the DWG To PDF.pc3 or any of the AutoCAD PDF .pc3's, it previews and plots normally. 

If this post answers your question or solves your issue, please click Accept as Solution so others in the community can find it easily.

[Anonymous]

Hi Chris,

This is indeed my first time posting here - thank you for your welcome.

Also - and I can't stress this too much - thank you for your solution. I'm a self taught user of AutoCAD and generally work within the model space.

My usual path to printing from model space is: to open the print/plot dialogue; select the printer I'm currently nearest; adjust the plot settings and scale as required; click on preview and then print from there.

Choosing AutoCAD PDF as a printer/plotter instead of the nearest printer has completely resolved the problems I was having with printing line thickness and general inaccuracy.

I'm not sure how I'd developed these problems, as it's never occurred before in the last eight years of using various versions of AutoCAD, but thanks again for helping me out.

All the best,

Matt

[maxim_k]

Hi Matt,

I see that your PDF was created with Mac OS X 10.11.6 Quartz PDFContext, that means AutoCAD used one of the printer drivers installed in macOS System preferences.
Looks like there is an issue (bug) in AutoCAD for Mac when you create PDF using native Mac OS X Quartz PDFContext engine from the drawing which contains objects with lineweight set to 0 (zero). The same bug is reproducible on macOS Mojave.