What are you guys using to create PDF's?

[jeanchile]

Hello all,

I't been a while since I've been here. Haven't been using IV lately that much. In the process of replacing my hard drive and upgrading to IV2015. In doing so I was taking a look at our PDF creation process and wondering what we could do better. We are currently using Adobe Acrobat Pro 9 Extended, which is a mouthful but it was the last version of Acrobat that created 3D PDF's and at the time we need that. We don't use it that much anymore.

I went to Adobe's site and it appears the only thing that these guys offer now is Acrobat DC. Their STUPID site is filled with fancy videos with catchy songs showing beautiful models adding signatures to documents on their phones which is great except they forgot to include something in the STUPID video that actually SHOWS HOW THE FREAKING SOFTWARE WORKS!!!

My questions for you great people are:

1.) Who at Adobe marketing thought this video is what we wanted to see?

2.) Who do they thing they are?

3.) Why are the people at my office, and my client's offices, so plain looking?

Actually, just kidding... I have real questions:

1.) What is everyone here using to create 2D pdfs?

2.) Does what you are using (if it is not Acrobat) support lots of different kinds of markups?

3.) What is everyone using to create 3D pdfs? Is it the same thing?

4.) What would everyone recommend?

What we need to do is this:

1.) Create lots of 2D PDF's from Inventor and all the Office applications.

2.) Mark up these PDF's using lots of different colors and users (we have a completely paperless office where are drawings are all checked and reviewed using Acrobat).

3.) Integrate these PDF's we've created with all our clients and other design partners outside of our office (they all use Acrobat Reader and the like).

4.) Make the occasional 3D PDF to send for review.

5.) Create PDF "forms" where people can review drawings and fill out entry fields and drop downs that are created in the PDF.

Thanks for the help and suggestions everyone. I look forward to not only the useful responses but also anything you have to add about the people you work with !

[cbenner]

We use Adobe, but we usually create them in the software from the print or plot dialog.  For markups, we use DWF's in Vault.  PDF's are almost exclusively for sending to third parties.

[mdavis22569]

Adobe and CutePDF

[jeanchile]

What versions of Adobe?

Are you guys using Adobe Acrobat DC?

Does it work with Inventor?

[blair]

We upgraded from Adobe Acrobat CC to Adobe Acrobat DC about 1 1/2 weeks ago. Still works with all products the same as the previous versions of Acrobat did. The user interface has changed to different Icons which will take a bit to get used to. Still does all the same things as the last couple of releases did along with a few new features.

[-niels-]

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jeanchile wrote:

Actually, just kidding... I have real questions:

1.) What is everyone here using to create 2D pdfs?

2.) Does what you are using (if it is not Acrobat) support lots of different kinds of markups?

3.) What is everyone using to create 3D pdfs? Is it the same thing?

4.) What would everyone recommend?

---

1.) For our idw's i usually use the export function within Inventor, not sure if that reliant on any installed pdf printer.

We use Adobe acrobat X pro for the other documents (and a few CutePDF installs, i think, as well).

2.) As viewer it's probably the Acrobat reader at most pc's, we don't really do markup on pdf's.

3.) We don't make those, for viewing our models there are  few pc's with "inventor view" installed.

We are looking into Vault and hope the dwf's from that will make things a bit easier.

4.) As far as PDF's go i'd recommend using software from the people that invented the format, if their solution(s) live up to your requirements ofcourse...

[salariua]

I usually export mine straight from Inventor or AutoCAD with scripts, ilogic or plain save as. Office products have save as pdf as well and for the rest I use Pdfforge PDF Creator. It has a lot of nice features like profiles (only use it for different watermarks) and Wait/Collect to merge different prints into a single pdf.

http://www.pdfforge.org/

For the mark-ups you should look at Autodesk's DWFX. As far as I remember you only need internet explorer to open and mark up files, and even do snapshots from different windows to add to your markup; You need to use design review to open other type of files like pdf, images. etc.

What's best is that you can open them back in Inventor or AutoCAD and the mark-ups appear as a separate layer on top of your drawing, making it really easy to verify and track your changes.

Try it. Create a DWFX ! not plain dwf (I.E. can't open them), do a couple of mark-ups and screenshoots and then open it back with Inventor or AutoCAD. goes like this:

[jeanchile]

Thank you blair,

One more question if you'll permit me... Are you guys using the cloud version of Acrobat DC that you pay yearly ($14.99 US/Month) or the standalone installation ($449.99/Month)?

I don't know if they are the same or different but I'm asking because I'm afraid the cloud version won't work with IV. They only list it on the site as working with Office applications "and others" and I can't seem to find what the "others" are. Too distracted by the flashy videos I guess.

[jeanchile]

Thanks niels, I appreciate your input. I'm trying to stay with Acrobat like you suggest, I'm just tring to make sure it will still do everything we need, and work with IV, now that it's in the cloud. Seems like blair is already using it though so hopefully he can shed a little more light and them I'm off to the races.

[jeanchile]

Thanks Adrian, personally I'd love to stick with DWFx. It's that same uphill battle outside the office though and because of our workflow, we'd prefer to stay with the same program throughout the internal and external processes. I wish there was some way that Autodesk could get everyone outside their industry to adopt their program. It would be a lot easier on us than learning a different program (Acrobat, BlueBeam, etc.) on each project. Every company we work for has their own process and 70% of them use Acrobat, the others use BlueBeam or something else like it.

[blair · Accepted solution]

We are using the cloud based, the only thing that really resides on the Cloud is your license. You can have it installed on a number of machines but can only use it on 1 machine at a time. It checks it's Cloud based license Manager to see if the license is in use on another machine.

You can store files on your Adobe Cloud account but all the software resides on your machine.

[jeanchile]

Thank you blair, after some investigation and testing based on your information, we have ended up with Adobe Acrobat DC. It is unfortunate that they moved a bunch of the tools around because it eats up space on my screen that is normally displaying 11x17 drawings, and it is unfortunate that it won't make 3D pdf's but we rarely ever need that feature any more anyway. Other than those two minor issues, this is exactly what we needed. Thanks!

[Anonymous]

We have both AutoCAD, Inventor, and Vault Pro 2015.  We have been trying to find a way to get FULLY SEARCHABLE PDF from our CAD files.  We have spent a lot of time looking at options.  Below are some things we have discovered.

1. Acrobat DC will NOT read IDW thus you have to use Inventor for PDF creation.  Inventor output is good, fully searchable.
2. Acrobat DC will NOT read DWFx.
3. Acrobat DC WILL read DWF but our attempts to get good PDF from the DWF have been problematic.
4. Acrobat DC WILL read DWG and convert to PDF very well, fully searchable text, looks good, etc.
5. Vault Pro will NOT produce a PDF visualization file.  You have to get the Autodesk Enterprise Add-in to do this.  This add-in also has a number of other nice features.  However, Autodesk cannot verify it will produce FULLY SEARCHABLE PDF for the 2015 version at least.
6. Look at Cool Orange Power Jobs.  It will create PDF and place it in Vault with it attached to the source file.  Supports life cycle state also so you know what state is of files.  It uses the job processor.  Recommended to install on client PC, not server.  Client PC just needs the free DWG TrueView to generate the PDF from DWG and Inventor for PDF from IDW.  Not real expensive either.  For 2016 and up produces fully searchable PDF.  2015 and lower not sure.
7. AutoCAD files with SHX fonts using 2015 or lower will NOT produce fully searchable PDF unless you process the DWG with Acrobat directly.  PDF print drivers will create PDF but shx text is not searchable.  Attempting to use OCR is problematic.
8. Existing PDF with any rendered text, even a hidden text entity will prevent Acrobat DC from processing with OCR.
9. DWF and DWFx work OK for internal use but most prefer PDF.  Thus we are considering PDF for standard Visualization.

Hope this helps someone.

[Anonymous]

Estimado amigo roto:

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