DWG to PDF not working

[WeberThompson]

I have setup Page Setups for a very long time.

But I ran into a really weird problem for a firm last week.

They upgraded to 2018 and I came in and copied the plotters for AutoCAD 2018 into their Plotters folder and started redoing the page setups.

All of them work except when using page setup overrides to plot to PDF.

They get a warning saying PDF Could Not Be Repaired.

I tried both the DWG to PDF.pc3 file and the AutoCAD PDF (High Quality) which I have used successfully before.

The only one that worked is the driver for PDF Converter Professional 8 by Nuance.

And the problem with that driver is that you have to load custom pages at each person's computer.

What in the world could be the problem?

Because when Adobe Reader is the default, the same problem occurs.  DWG to PDF.pc3 file and the AutoCAD PDF (High Quality) both still do not work.

[dave · Accepted solution]

@WeberThompson wrote:

For people facing the same problems, the answer is a corrupt font.

It took a lot of research and investigation but I finally tracked the bad font to FuturaStd-Medium.

Replacing the font with one from the web did not help, BTW.

We had to erase the text and redo it.

---

How did you go about finding the bad font?

[WeberThompson]

I was doing CAD Management consulting for a firm.

Some of the drawings would print fine and some not.

So, I took one drawing that would not plot to pdf and isolated the text styles and erased them one by one until I found the bad font.

Then, I downloaded the font from the web and replaced it in C:\Windows\Font on everyone's computer.  I also replaced it in our networked location.

It is not an easy task.  But I would start with title block font which is more likely to be different than regular font.

Good luck!

[Anonymous]

I don't have that font in my drawing. If I create a PDF after importing the CAD file into CET or 2020 it prints fine and is editable. Are there updated drivers? I am using Arch 2020 ver

[WeberThompson]

Sorry, but what kind of drivers are you talking about?

If it works in Architecture 2020, why not just use that?

[Anonymous]

None of the PDF output selections work in Arch 2020. The drivers used to output PDFs that were selectable and editable. They now all come up with an error msg “adobe acrobat has encountered an unknown error” when attempting to edit. The PDFs are not as crisp and there seems to be a background raster image in all of them with portions of the drawing. This was not the case with all previous versions of Autocad.

[WeberThompson]

So there is no AutoCAD PDF (High Quality Print).pc3 plotter such as shown below?

That is the built in DWG to PDF driver for AutoCAD and the one you always want to use when creating a PDF from AutoCAD.

[Anonymous]

Correct. None of them generate a viable PDF unless the ouput can be sent as-is. 

[WeberThompson]

So I would reset my AutoCAD to default then.

It will reset it to the OOBE (out of the box experience).

Left click on Start > AutoCAD -2020 as shown in the screenshot below.

(I have 2019 installed).

[Anonymous]

I have done that. It did not rectify the issue. It's a mystery.

[WeberThompson]

Do you have your plotters folder networked?  

Or are you using the default folder structure under your username?

[WeberThompson]

Try downloading and using Foxit Reader.

It is free.  Then make it your default PDF program.

[dave]

A little late to this party this morning, but my email has been blowing up with the replies. When I had this issue, my corrupt font was one I created off a TrueType that wasn't cad compatible. I completely swapped the font out of our drawings and templates. I found that temporarily we could get around it in the pdf options by not having the box circled in the image checked. The downside is that if someone doesn't actually have that font, it will replace it when they open the pdf and it probably won't look right. 

[WeberThompson]

Did the Foxit Reader work?

[Anonymous]

I need it to open in Adobe so I can edit it. The PDF configs in AutoCAD need to work... Will try deleting and reinstalling the plotters but this has been an issue since I went to 2020 ver

[shweyeephyo02]

Thank you. It's work.

[caleb_griffithsDKP52]

Awesome that you found the issue, I have been having the exact same issue as you stated in this thread. I tested out saving this with 'Capture fonts used in the drawing' unchecked and it worked like a charm.

I am not sure why it won't save with the font that I had selected. However it is a font that I have downloaded (Klavika) which is not a default Windows font. Maybe that is the issue?

Regardless, for now I will happily put up with Arial until I find a fix. Thank you for posting your update when you worked it out! Saved me from spending half a day pulling my hair out!

[3wood]

You do not need erase the text and redo it.

Just find out your acad.fmp and add a line at the end: "Futura-Std-Medium;Romans.shx"

It will substitute all text fonts using "Futura-Std-Medium" (please check the name) with "Romans.shx" (or any other font you prefer) upon opening any drawing.