DWG to PDF Files too large.

[Anonymous]

I am using ACAD Mechanical 2012 and when I plot to a PDF the files are huge. I've looked and can't seem to find what the problem is. I'm using DWG to PDF.pc3.  I've tried using adobe and cute pdf writer.  The PDF's remain huge. Other drafters in our office plot the same drawing and it's a fraction of the size. Any suggestions?

Linda

[nicolas.menu]

Hi Linda,

If you drill down to the DWG to PDF.pc3 Properties > Custom properties, you can set the DPI for vectors and rasters. The smaller value, the less quantity of data in your PDF (The Layout size also matters.)
This overall will impact the PDF size.

Hope this helps,
Cheers, Nicolas

[Anonymous]

Have you checked really all(!) plot seetings and your UCS?

Have you tried to plot with another profile?

[Anonymous]

I've tried all of that.  I changed the DPI settings several times and it doesn't do a thing.

What has the UCS got to do with it?  I am not sure what you mean by checking the UCS.

[KarenMason · Accepted solution]

Hi Linda,

I'm not sure what the problem is, but we made some improvements to PDF file creation in the AutoCAD 2016 family.  The file size is smaller for many drawings (but not all).  It depends on your drawing content.   You might want to install the 2016 version to see if that helps the issue.  Let us know if that works.  🙂

[Anonymous]

    > I am not sure what you mean by checking the UCS.

I meant that in some cases the entire plot rendering is different if you have some special entities (3D objects, areas, ...) and a special view (e.g. not orthogonal).

But if your coworkes print the same file with same software into small files, then you should change or export+erase your profile. Sometimes there are strange things in it ..

[Anonymous]

Thanks. I'll give that a try.

[Anonymous]

I changed it from the mechanical profile back to vanilla.  That helped a lot. But I don't think I should have to do that in order to get acceptable file sizes.  It'll work for now, until I find a better solution.

Thanks.

Linda

[C3D_TomR]

I've seen many odd things happen with corrupt user profiles. One thing that sometimes fixes it is to export the "corrupt" profile and import it as a different name. Switch to that profile and see if the issue remains.

[ParishSouthBdx]

view the attachment.

toggle between those two settings printing dwg to pdf for each one.

see what it does for you.

merge control

overwrite or merge

I had your same issue in Houston.  there was something to do with this setting.

not sure what it was but it involved this setting.

[WJG2014]

Hello - 

My company recently upgraded AutoCAD from 2015 to 2017.  I was able to drastically reduce pdf file size when batchplotting in 2015, however with 2016 the same files are creating huge pdf files and no options during batch plot or individual drawing plot will reduce the file size.  

For the same drawing, my pdf with 2015 was 4,130KB due to a batch plot.  This same drawing in 2017 version (no changes made to drawing) plots with dwg to pdf if done not in batch plot but as a single drawing is 26,063KB, with the batch plot feature selecting the smallest (web and mobile) setting the file size comes to 257,590 KB for this (new and improved?) 2017.  I want my 2015 back, but that option is no longer available to me.  Why are my pdfs plotting 5Xs larger or more in 2017?  Please help me resolve this.

Thank you in advance for your help.