Publish to Multi-Sheet PDF Not Working

[Anonymous]

Hi all,

I'm having this issue in both AutoCAD 2018 and 2015. PUBLISHCOLLATE=1 and in the publish options dialogue box, it is set to plot to a multi-sheet file. Nevertheless it is generating multiple, one page PDFs instead of a single, multipage PDF. 

It was working until today. Could a windows OS update have screwed it up somehow?

[ennujozlagam]

@Anonymous hello, you can try to check it <<click HERE>> previous thread. thanks

[Anonymous]

Unfortunately the solution presented in that thread doesn't work for me because the OTB publish to PDF driver gives us bad results. We use a third party plotter, Foxit.

I was able to create multi-sheet PDFs using PUBLISH with Foxit until recently it stopped working, apparently out of the blue. 

[Alfred.NESWADBA]

Hi,

>> because the OTB publish to PDF driver gives us bad results. We use a third party plotter,

What is bad when using the internal PDF drivers (as long as you have not used migration from previous AutoCAD versions)?

For me the internal driver is the most stable one, creating higher quality PDF's with less file-size (compared to others).

Using 3rd party plotter might create more conflicts and I would look into the Foxit settings, maybe it's updated or there were settings modified?

- alfred -

[john.vellek]

Hi @Anonymous,

Just as a test, can you please try PUBLISH with the built-in drivers?  This should tell us if the action is with your FoxIt or if it is something else.

Has your FoxIt recently been upgraded or reset to a previous setting?

It is possible that a Windows update might cause this. Can you check through the list of recently applied updates to see if there are any that correspond with the beginning of this problem?

Please select the Accept as Solution button if my post solves your issue or answers your question.

[Anonymous]

Publishing to multi-sheet PDFs works correctly with built in drivers.

I suspect it has something to do with the Windows update I installed on 6/14: Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool for Windows 8, 8.1, 10 and Windows Server 2012, 2012 R2, 2016 x64 Edition - June 2017 (KB890830). I noticed the problem a little while after that update and may not have tried publishing to multi-sheet files in the interim. 

I don't know where to go from here, though. I wouldn't expect the malicious software remover tool part of the update to effect the performance of drivers... nor would I expect any changes to the server to effect it... it's a mystery.

[john.vellek]

Hi @Anonymous,

Can you try uninstalling that update temporarily to see if things return to normal?

Have you checked the FoxIt web site to see if this is a known issue?

Please select the Accept as Solution button if my post solves your issue or answers your question.

[Alfred.NESWADBA]

Hi,

>> I don't know where to go from here, though

Would you be willing to show us why you don't want to use the built-in driver (which seems to work as you reported)?

- alfred -

[Anonymous]

DWG to PDF and AdobePDF generate text that looks inconsistent and hard to read, regardless of whether it's set to plot as graphics or as text. More significantly, when we use AdobePDF to plot rendered plans, they don't appear to be excessively large files, but something about them causes trouble when they are sent to a printer. That's a problem we heard from our clients and we duplicated it in house. 

I don't know how to reverse a windows OS update, but I can look into trying that tomorrow. 

Another tidbit of potentially useful evidence: I have one sheet file with multiple sheets in it. When I publish the sheets that are in that file from that file, not using the .dsd, it works correctly (it creates a multipage pdf). I tried opening all the sheet files associated with the project and publishing them all with files open and not using .dsd, and it did not work correctly.

[Alfred.NESWADBA]

Hi,

>> DWG to PDF and AdobePDF generate text that looks inconsistent and hard to read

I don't speak about Adobe PDF, my suggestion is only "DWG to PDF".

And in most cases a text is not displayed properly in the PDF it's a setting, but not the driver generally.

Would be great to work with a drawing and compare then the results.

>> publishing them all with files open and not using .dsd, and it did not work correctly.

What means "did not work correctly"?

Referring to your 2 PDF's - which I understand they were both done with drivers you don't like - I'm missing the PDF that you create with your driver to see what is better with that output.

- alfred -

[Anonymous]

See attached for a PDF generated with the driver we like. 

I have looked for ways of changing settings on DWG to PDF to get it to work better, and have had no luck. If you have dealt with this issue, I would love to hear what worked for you. 

[Alfred.NESWADBA]

Hi,

Can you use one PDF to mark the position you see in your file as good which is in the "DWG to PDF" file bad from your point of view?

If you can upload the drawing I would be able to play with the settings and see what makes the file that big.

- alfred -

[nakanoautocad]

The text on the foxit pdf is consistent and clear. The text on the dwg to pdf version looks bad. The lines in the text are inconsistent- some appear thick, some appear thin, and it changes depending on your zoom level.

could be a pdf reader issue, but we can't control the settings our clients are using on their pdf readers, and pdfs made with foxit consistently look good. 

[Alfred.NESWADBA]

sorry, I mixed some threads, - alfred -

[Alfred.NESWADBA]

Hi,

>> The text on the foxit pdf is consistent and clear. The text on the dwg to pdf version looks bad

I viewed now your pdf's using PDF-X Change Viewer and it looks contrary to your impression.

Please find my screenshots from that 2 files attached

May I ask you to upload a drawing and I play with the settings in "DWG to PDF"?

- alfred -

[Anonymous]

As I noted previously, the erratic appearance of the text that we are seeing is dependent on the zoom level. In your screen shot, it appears that you are zoomed in. Our experience is that the text looks good when you are zoomed in, but when you are zoomed out-- for example, when you view a pdf with the page fit to the screen, the text doesn't appear correctly. We are using Adobe Acrobat DC with all default settings. Please see the attached capture.jpg.

I'm also uploading a drawing for you. There are some xrefs, please open the sheet file, which is L-1.1-3 Plant Details.

[Alfred.NESWADBA]

Hi,

>> In your screen shot, it appears that you are zoomed in

I'm at 100% ... and that is the factor the PDF is build for.

The PDF (in contrary to DWF) is built for printing at 100%, it is not built for using zoom in and out a lot

I'll look into your drawings, but the result might need a bit (it's night for me).

- alfred -

[Alfred.NESWADBA]

Hi,

sorry, have not remembered to this open question!

From what I see (I don't have the CTB you have assigned to your layouts) you are using SHX fonts.

The simple solution (I would use) for your text in the PDF is to use TTF-fonts, that is what PDF can handle while zooming.

[EDIT] ... also please don't use "Scale lineweights" in your plot window, that is a very unusual setting and could be part of the issues [/EDIT]

- alfred -

[Anonymous]

Thank you for the tip about TTF, Alfred. Changing our company's CAD standards to use a different font isn't necessarily easy, but it's also not necessarily impossible. 

Nobody has any insight into the original issue? I am having a hard time believing that it is simply impossible to plot to multi-sheet PDFs with a third party plotter, since I was doing that on a regular basis for about 6 months. 

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

I figured out a solution: publishing through the sheet set manager instead of the PUBLISH command!

In the sheet set manager, I created a new page setup specifying my third party plotter as well as all the other required page setup settings. Sheet set publish options is set to multi-sheet file. Publish using page setup override/[the new page setup I just created] created exactly what I wanted: a multi-sheet pdf that graphically matches other pdfs created by the desired plotter. 

Thanks everyone for your help!