Batch Plot to pdf...Broken?

[marchitect_nc]

Batch Plotting to pdf now creates a pdf with boxes around the text in the xrefs.

This occurs no matter what text setting I select in PDF Publish Options or which PDF Preset I select.

I now have to leave LT 2016 and Batch plot out of LT 2015. No joy there.

m

[pendean]

There are no boxes here in PDFs: which PDF viewer are you using? you probably have to turn that box off.

[marchitect_nc]

Hi Dean,

Turn what box off?

These text boxes show up in the pdf preview in Windows 7 Explorer also.

I use PDF Express for pdf viewing.

It works fine in LT 2015, no boxes in PDF Viewer or in Windows Explorer preview, but not in LT 2016, something changed.

And its not every piece of text either, just text that is contained in an x-ref.

m

[pendean]

Your pdf viewer has a box-around-text feature you need to turn off: Adobe Reader XI doesn't do that here. Lt 2016, unlike the older versions, now creates searchable text in PDFs. Your pdf viewer boxes around them unless you find where the heck that is and turn it off inside the pdf viewer you are using.

Do yourself a favor and read the "what's new in 2016" documents and posts all over autodesk's website and blogs all about it, searchable text and other features new in 2016 are not in 2015. Nope, you can't turn it off in 2016. Maybe later if enough folks complain about it.

[marchitect_nc]

Hi Dean,

Not all my clients use Adobe products to view pdf's.

Complaints from them is a deal breaker for me, and in the interest of customer relations, I'm not goint to tell them their viewer of choice needs a setting changed.

LT worked before, it needs to work again, I wish improvements were really improvements.

m

[pendean]

Knowing how your PDF viewer works is critical for every user: offer guidance when you send them PDFs from LT2016 moving forward, it's good customer service regardless of what you think Autodesk is doing.

[phu_nguyen]

I have same situation with new AutoCAD 2016. My clients compain about my recent PDF files which showing dots instead of text. The reason is font embeded in the PDF files is missing and they don't have the font in their system to display the PDF files properly. I can customise plot to PDF option to include the font with the PDF files but I dont want to do that for a variety of fonts.

Others clients complain about texts in the PDF are surrounded with boxes, extractly same issue as the original poster. These boxes are recognised as comments in PDF reader software and can be turned off within that software. However for general PDF viewing as we are used to, we dont wan't this extra step. 

Any fix from Autodesk which allows disable/enable this new feature with PDF is very much appreciated. One solution for these two issues (and may be more to come) regarding the new PDF feature of CAD2016.

[pendean]

1. You have to embed fonts if you want your recipient to see what you are sending them as you see it. We've done that for decades here and it avoids all issues for recipients and is good customer service (we started sharing PDFs with Acrobat v 1.0 back in the day).
2. Teach them how to turn off those boxes in their PDF viewers: these are user settings in their software that are out of your control. Include it as a "tip" when you send files out. After you do it once or twice it becomes second nature to you, tey find it useful and think you are providing good customer service to boot.
3. No ability to enable/disable yet. May or may not happen. Who knows.

[Anonymous]

I would like to add my name to the list of complainers. I know how to turn off the comment boxes in my PDF reader and have taught my associates how to do the same. However, I feel it would be more productive to have the option to turn searchable text off when sending PDFs to other trades. I am not the only engineer at my company who sends PDFs out to clients and other trades, and although I am happy to instruct others on the proper way to make my PDFs look right, I don't expect every person here to do the same. Nor can I reasonably expect the recipient of my PDF to know where the "hide comments" button is on their reader of choice. The result so far has been unfulfilling.

-Sean

[pendean]

I like your passion: if you could take the extra step, log into your subscription portal, start a support ticket about turning off this feature then complain about it bitterly when they say nothing exists yet it might get Autodesk moving in our direction for a fix to turn this feature off or on in AutoCAD and not elsewhere.