PDF export prints opaque label as transparent

[lsuuronen]

The pdf export command on Revit seems to print opaque background of a label as transparent. Is there perhaps a parameter to control this? I haven't found any.

[juliar123]

What year are you working in? Are you using the File> Export> PDF or are you just clicking the print button? I find the newer version of Revit need to go through the Export PDF tool  and not the print function. We have found all kind of weird problems when you just hit print. 

[lsuuronen]

We're on 2023. I'm talking about the Revit PDF export functionality (File > Export > PDF), not the Print command. With the PDF export the problem is that it prints opaque label background as transparent, which the Print command prints as expected. We'd prefer the PDF export command but for this reason alone we're basically stuck with the Print command, which crashes a lot.

[gokcen.ezgi.sen]

Hello @lsuuronen,

Are you sure the Edit Family - Tag Label - Type Properties - Backgroud option of the tag is Opaque?
I think the problem might be a visualization bug.
Can you try running the software as an administrator and importing the project you are working on?

Otherwise, if you can upload the project you are having trouble with, and I can examine it in detail.

Let me know if you have more questions on this topic, otherwise please accept as a solution so that others can benefit from this information.

Best regards,

Gokcen Ezgi Sen

MSc. Architect - BIM Consultant

LinkedIn 

[lsuuronen]

Thanks for the feedback! I do have to apologize for having jumped into conclusions here. Looks like this problem is a very specific one. It might be limited to a workaround I've had to create (and similar situations)  to reproduce an office standard Title Block. Since Revit doesn't provide a way to adjust line spacing in labels, I've used a label to cover another one to, in a way, wrap text in a label of a title block. Whereas the Print command produces a pdf as expected i.e. what's on screen, the Pdf Export command prints a "masking" label as transparent. Looks like I'll be redesigning our age-old title block, afterall... See attached pdf, an image and a Revit Project file. The first page in the pdf is the Pdf export, the second page is the Pdf print. The jpg shows the "masking" label in the Title Block family. 

[gokcen.ezgi.sen]

Hi @lsuuronen,

Thanks a lot for the documents you shared.

When I examined the project, I saw that there were overlapping tags in the sheet family, and I clicked Edit Family and viewed in the Family Editor.

The main reason for the problem is that the sheet name is long and it goes down to the bottom line because it does not fit the line length limited by the label. For this reason, I aligned the labels and shortened the Sheet name as you can see in the attached pdf document.
I am attaching the project file that I fixed by myself, I hope it will be useful for you.

Also, the Backgrounds of the tags were not opaque, I tried to explain how to make them opaque in the attached zip file (ss).

Let me know if you have more questions on this topic, otherwise please accept as a solution so that others can benefit from this information.

Best regards,

Gokcen Ezgi Sen

MSc. Architect - BIM Consultant

LinkedIn 

[lsuuronen]

Thanks for the reply. I'm afraid that what you've presented in the .rvt file is not a solution. The reason our Title Block Family is put together the way it is, is to allow long Sheet Names to appear correctly on an office standard Title Block on a sheet, where the line spacing between the two rows showing the Sheet Name is considerably bigger than the Revit standard line spacing which, unfortunately, cannot be adjusted. (Adjustable line spacing, in turn, is a long standing issue that users have requested as a feature of text and labels in Revit). Your version of the Title Block family simply repeats the Sheet Name on two rows which is not what we're looking for. I do realize that what I've reported is a condition that perhaps rarely presents itself in practice, but it would nonetheless be nice if Revit would perform as expected here, too. After all, the Print Pdf command produces expected results, whereas the Export Pdf command does not.

[gokcen.ezgi.sen]

Hi @lsuuronen,

I want to make sure I understand the problem. Since the sheet language is different from the languages I know, I could not understand exactly what kind of structure you are trying to construct. But of course, Revit moves a long sheet name (if it is longer than the specified row width) to the bottom row.

However, since the line spacing allocated for the Sheet Name is narrow in this context, I think it would be a solution to either reduce the text size, or leave a larger space for the Sheet Name as in the attached file (Pdf_export_test-0002).

Otherwise, as seen in the other attached file (Pdf_export_test-0003), the second line of the Sheet Name will overflow into the lower section.

I hope these solutions were able to answer your question.

Let me know if you have more questions on this topic, otherwise please accept as a solution so that others can benefit from this information.

Best regards,

Gokcen Ezgi Sen

MSc. Architect - BIM Consultant

LinkedIn 

[lsuuronen]

I appreciate your feedback. Yes, as I said earlier it looks like I'm going to have to fully redesign the office standard title block, which is yet again more extra work simply because it's turned out that the pdf export doesn't work as expected, i.e. it's not reproducing what's on the sheet. Keep in mind that the print command prints correctly. It's a rather unfortunate pattern of the software that we're forced to spend time creating workarounds every time there's inconsistent behaviour. Since there could any number of other situations where this inconsistency might produce unexpected results, the long-term solution would be for Autodesk to remedy the pdf exporter.