CAD Linked Texts won't show in PDF as HalfTone

[stingers80-cgarchitect]

I have been struggling with this problem for a while.

I have a CAD file linked to Revit project. CAD file is set to Half Tone and everything prints as such except Texts. they keep printing Black even though they are shown Grey in Revit. I even changed text to Red but they still print Black.

Here's a snapshot of Revit window vs Printe PDF(on right)

What am I missing?

Thanks

[syman2000]

What type of PDF driver do you use? Adobe, CutePDF, Bluebeam or other?

[stingers80-cgarchitect]

I have tried both Acrobat and Bluebeam. same result

[syman2000]

I like to know what settings you have for bluebeam or Adobe Acrobat

When I use default setting, it shows up fine

[stingers80-cgarchitect]

looks exactly like yours

[syman2000]

Can you attached a sample file for your issue? I like to see if I am getting the same issue and it isn't the file issue.

[IanYeager]

Did this get solved for you? I have set the color for my linked CAD layer as well...lines plot grey, grey text plots (PDF's) black.

[Lance.Coffey]

@IanYeager, I’m thinking this is caused by the “Replace halftone with thin lines” option in the Print Setup Dialog. For more information on this, see the article: Halftone gray lines print black in Revit

[IanYeager]

Hi @Lance.Coffey , There is no issue with the lines, just the text and I do not have the Halftone thin lines setting in use.

[IanYeager]

Here are some images @Lance.Coffey 

[Lance.Coffey]

@IanYeager In my testing (in Revit 2021), turning on the "Replace halftone with thin lines" option will change halftoned text to black (from a linked DWG).

However, from the screenshots you provided, it looks like something else is going on.

Could you attach a small sample RVT model where this is occurring?

[IanYeager]

Hi @Lance.Coffey , 

Here is a portion of the cad file and the model that has been stripped. Same issue occurs. PDF attached as well.

Thx,

Ian

[stingers80-cgarchitect]

I did not solve the problem but this seems to be a bug in Revit 2020. In Reit 2021 I don't see this problem.

[IanYeager]

@Lance.Coffey Any luck with the files I sent?

[Lance.Coffey]

Thank you for the update @IanYeager.

It looks like you may be seeing the issue described in the following article: Texts in different layers printed with the same colors from DWG files linked in Revit models

I’m seeing that the DWG in the attached RVT file is not set to “Halftone”, but there are different graphic overrides for different layers of the DWG.

When I use the Halftone checkbox in Revit 2020, everything is printed as halftone.

Additionally, as @stingers80-cgarchitect mentioned, I’m not seeing this behavior in the 2021 version. I’m also not seeing this issue when printing using Raster Processing (as mentioned in the article above.

If you can't use raster processing (due to size or resolution requirements), and can't upgrade to 2021, to do the printing to PDF, and can't use the halftone checkbox (because some text/items need to be black), you could try placing duplicate instances of the DWG in the same location, then turn on the halftone option for one, where only the items that you want to be halftone are made visible, and then adjust the other link so that only the items you want to show up as black are visible.

[IanYeager]

Thanks for the reply @Lance.Coffey so basically there is no solution, just a few other "tricks" that might do.

No update to 2020 forthcoming to resolve this? 

I cannot upgrade the project (that should never be an option to a problem). 

I cannot set it to halftone as, you are correct, some text needs to be dark and some toned.

I cannot use Raster because we all know raster looks very poor.

I cannot duplicate the drawing so half is dark and half is toned. The link is a riser diagram which is one cohesive drawing. 

I guess it is what it is....

[stingers80-cgarchitect]

@Lance.Coffeyon further investigation I found out that the Bug is more severe than what is described in the article that you linked. for example isolating the CAD file in the drawing will affect how it shows up in PDF. See below (on left side drawing printed with CAD link isolated & on right side printed with the rest of drawing) (I have made sure that it is not a duplicate on each other)

 

at the end of day, Revit is now in 2020 version, Autodesk has moved on and I don't think there will be an update for this.