Square appears beside dimensions and format changed when exporting to PDF?

[hmedcalfL23J7]

I've been noticing the strangest thing on my projects and if you reference the attached pictures then you'll see what I'm talking about. Everything looks normal in Revit and even when I print out the floorplan, however exporting my views to PDF changes the format of the text and adds a square next to the text? I'm lost on what part of the PDF process is causing this to happen?

Just a side note, this only affects dimensions that I've overrode the text value on. Again it is literally only when I export my plans to PDF that this problem arises? Any ideas? 

[L.Maas · Accepted solution]

Printing seems to be always a complicate process, as it is an interaction between program, OS and printer.

You can try a few things:

-Use  a different PDF printer.

-Print it out using the "Raster Processing" setting in the Revit Print dialog.

-Try a different (more common) font like Arial.

[hmedcalfL23J7]

That's so strange. I've used external PDF Writers before, however I don't like the quality of the prints. Using the native Export to PDF yields me the best results except for this glitch that I'm seeing with the font. Perhaps I might try just adding text next to the dimension rather than overwriting the dimension text. I hate doing this because I like for my dimension to move together if I have to.

My firm uses this special font on our projects so I won't be able to switch to Arial unfortunately.

I appreciate the response!

[Ceorl82]

Were you able to resolve this?  Someone brought this to attention this morning.

Thanks

[hmedcalfL23J7]

Unfortunately not. My work around has just been to create my own text and add it next to the dimension value. I suppose this wouldn't be an issue if you stick to Arial font, however my firm uses a font called "Graphite Lite" which is a font that we actually had to add to Revit as it's not an option by default. It must be something to do with the PDF export process and not recognizing special fonts that aren't native to Revit

[Ceorl82]

Thank's for the reply.  Arial is our standard font.  I'm using the export methods in the API, so using a different print driver won't help either.  I also set AlwaysUseRaster in the export options to true as well; didn't help.

[Ceorl82]

Out of curiosity, which version of Revit are you using?  We're currently using 2022.

[hmedcalfL23J7]

2024.1 is the version I'm currently running

That is odd. I had a theory that it was because we were using a non native font but after your response it looks like it doesn't matter. I used to use a 3rd party PDF writer however, my PDF's would come out fuzzy looking. The PDF export natively in Revit does the best export results that I've seen except for when you try to override a dimension value. AutoCAD is capable of overrides with no issue so I don't understand why it is an issue in Revit. If I want to add text next to a dimension value I should be able to do so

[Ceorl82]

I agree with the exporting comment.  We have groups using 2023 and 2024, and I have code versions for all three.  I was hoping it was fixed in a later version.  Guess not.  My guess is, the engineers as Autodesk are unaware of the issue.  Hopefully, they'll spot this and fix it.  Hey, once again, thanks for your input and Merry Christmas.

[hmedcalfL23J7]

I'd like to think they look at our issues, but I have issues that others have reported years ago and they are never addressed. I'd say for now you'll just have to use text boxes if you don't want the export to look funny. Thanks for that, you have a Merry Christmas as well!

[sapurkotanya · Accepted solution]

For those working in Revit who have a problem with squares appearing after dimensions when printing to PDF (after Unicode), use the following clever method. Insert invisible text at the beginning and end (Invisible Character) + value with the necessary manual numerical  values  11’ - 0”. You can copy the invisible character from the link https://www.invisible-character.net/.

Don't forget to revert the numbers to Actual Value before this procedure. After that, do not use Insert Unicode

[sapurkotanya]

* at the beginning OR the end

[aldelvi_rev_plans]

I am using 2025 and NOTHING works! Still those boxes appear when I override the dimension. 

This glitch is killing me!

[olgaLNM6X]

This worked for me!

The only thing is that the empty symbol created a gap in the dimension line below, as the text background is Opaque.

[abeeb]

Check dimention....... if your replacing exact dimention with some other values use unicode else these character will appear in PDF