Ploting to PDF - Line weight Issues

[Anonymous]

Hello,

I'm an architect who works in AutoCAD here in my office. I produce drawings for a 24X36 format, we print half size (11X17) to review internally. When I draft, I use our office standard layers, whose line weight is defined in our CTB file. Since I've worked here, our lineweights have always looked light. Keep in mind that Im ploting to PDF. We use bluebeam and Adobe here. Printing to both produces bad lineweights. My understanding was that it was the CTB file. However lately, I have been plotting directly to the printers from CAD. Completely different appearence. The line weights are bold. Hatches are reading more promenently. Why is this happening? Why arnt my exported pdfs printing as strongly.

Things to note:

• Half size sets to review (11x17) are printed on the same printer always. 
• Full size sets come from our plotter, I am confident that they exhibt the same line weight, just twice the size of the 11X17
• Plotting from CAD to both printers produces better lineweights. 
• Viewing the PDF on my screen shows light line weights.
• CTB is our standard. 

Thank you Kindly,

[troma]

Have you tried digging into your pc3 file settings?
Is bluebeam a plot-to-pdf thing? Never heard of it.
If you're using that and Adobe, try something else just for fun. Try the DWG To PDF or download and test the free Cute PDF writer.

[troma]

What version of CAD are you working in?

[Anonymous]

AutoCAD 2014

[Anonymous]

Bluebeam is similar to Adobe, it has a better interface for marking up and commenting on drawings so we prefer to use it for CA. Yes, you Plot to "Bluebeam PDF". 

I have sifted through the pc3 file. I didnt find anything that helped. I have attached a scan of the same drawing printed using two different methods. You will see that printing directly to the plotter produces a much clearer reading drawing. you can read the hatch, and the line weights better. 

[Anonymous]

DWG to PDF produced the sam undesired results.

[sjg · Accepted solution]

When your plotting a full size drawing (24X36) to a half scale (11X17) make sure you check scale lineweight.

[Anonymous]

Thank you Steve,

That answers why my line weights are bolder printing directly from CAD - I wasnt checking that box. Ultimately, it seems our CTB is the culprit prodicing the light line weights.   

[hencoop]

PDF is an interpreted output (well, all plots are) but then the output from a PDF is interpreted yet again. That's why I plot to a compressed TIFF plotter. Once in TIFF format the plot is permanently "fixed" as a collection of pixels. Then it can be made into a PDF which is not subject to any interpretation and can be printed to any device producing the same appearance. A bonus that I like is that I can plot to TIFF full size all the time and just change the dpi (double it) to have a half size plot that is literally identical to the full size plot. It is a smaller file which loads anx prints faster too. If i need color I just use JPG instead. One caveat, autocad does not set the dpi in the TIFF file so it must be set after the plot is made. I use IrfanView (a free app) for this and to double it to make it half size.