Text prints larger when using built-in export to PDF

[p-jacobs]

Hi all,

I have a strange issue where text prints larger when using the built-in PDF exporter in Revit 2022.

I did a little test with the text below and added some detail lines as a reference. 

As you can see the longer the text is the more it extends to the right. So it seems that it has to do something with the characters. I used the standard Arial font with a height of 1.8mm. 

When printing the text with a 'regular' PDF printer the text is shown as expected.

Everyone within our company has this issue. So I don't think it's display scale related or computer related but it has to be something Revit related.

I've gone through:

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/revit-architecture-forum/text-is-printing-larger-than-it-appears/td-p...

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/revit/troubleshooting/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/Issues-w...

but none of the solutions work for us.

Revit (thin lines on):

Built-in PDF exporter:

Other PDF printer:

Thanks in advance.

[ToanDN]

What font are you using?

[p-jacobs]

The standard Arial font with a height of 1.8mm

[Lachlan-JWP]

I've replicated this issue on my machine using Revit 2022.1, see attached files. I've never noticed this before because I use Diroots for all my pdf exporting needs.

[stefan_gokstorp]

first look it seams to have something to with the distance between letters no idea how to fixed dont have revit 2023 open but try removing all the spaces and see if the problem persists. not an solution but at least then we know if the spaces is the issue.

[p-jacobs]

It's not just the spaces, the line without spaces is also longer. But not as long as the one with spaces (see the V of 'above'). So my guess is that it's in all characters as wel as the spaces.

[luisPDAN6]

Strange that the built in exporter scales the fonts wrong. Another reason to continue using a PDF publisher extension...

[Lachlan-JWP]

Could this be doing something similar to the Revit 2017 text size issue?

[p-jacobs]

The article talks about text changing in height and with, my text only changes in width.

[Lachlan-JWP]

Ok then. I've tried changing the text size to see what that does. The larger the text gets the less of an issue this becomes. I'm stumped. If no-one else has anything to add, you should escalate this to Autodesk support and see what they can do.

[p-jacobs]

Thanks for all the reply's. I contacted Autodesk support and it's a known issue. They are currently investigating it:

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/revit/troubleshooting/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/Text-ove...

So when it's gonna be solved: we'll see.

The workaround is to use a PDF printer. See basically they created a function that's not working properly and they recommend the old way to create PDF's.

[gijsdegroot3201]

revit:

Built-in PDF exporter:

Other PDF printer:

same problem, 

the second line i used the 'bolt' option.

it reacts exactly the same as the first line

[DAI-JML]

Hopefully this adds to this conversation and can be recreated by others.

I will be using Imperial units for font sizes (3/32", 1/8" etc) and Arial (standard, wf=1, etc).

I have noticed that the built-in PDF exporter will round the Revit font size to the nearest 0.5 increment pt font size. This can be seen if using a software like Adobe Acrobat Pro, and going to "Edit PDF > Edit Text." 

Meaning.

3/32" text height in Revit (0.09375 inches) when Exported to PDF will become font size Arial 9.5.

Similarly.

1/8" (0.125 inches) becomes 12.5.

3/16" (0.1875 inches) becomes 19.0.

You can notice in this example, that the height in inches is just shifting the decimal place by the time it pushes over to pt font size in the PDF. (perhaps "pt" is the wrong units to use for this explanation?)

So, depending on where you fall in your font size height within Revit, it may upsize/downsize it by X% by the time it gets to the PDF.

Additionally, when using a PDF printer/plotter (example Bluebeam), it does a "better" job of translating the decimal height to a closer matching pt font size, as opposed to rounding to nearest 0.5. 

I would intuitively think that this same translation would hold true in rounding, regardless of units mm or in.

[p-jacobs]

Hi DAI-JML,

Thanks for your reply and the suggestion that it might be the rounding of the text size.

I did some research in the metric template, so the sizes you see below are in mm.

The result is that I found some more interesting things. The text sizes of 1.2 en 1.3 mm and the 1.7 and 1.8 mm are exactly the same. I checked the type parameters of the text notes 3 times to make sure that I didn't make a mistake but they really are the same size.

Also Revit doesn't round to the nearest 0.5. Some texts are a bit smaller and some a bit bigger. It looks a bit random. Maybe it has to do something with the fact that Revit's internal units are in feet and it rounds to feet or whatever imperial value.

Revit:

Built-in PDF printer:

 Other PDF printer:

[DAI-JML]

P-jacobs,

The rounding of 0.5 is only in reference to the Arial font size on the PDF side, but i'll get back to that later.

When set to imperial units (inches), text can be modified in 1/256" increments.

When on the metric units (mm) side, the refinement in mm seems a bit more random in when it elects to visually change the actual size of the text height.

Stepping back and forth between the two, my guess is that the following is occurring. The text height in mm is converted to inches and then rounded to the closest 1/256 inch increment. I worked through a few, and cannot state if it is exactly a round_up, round_down, or round_nearest function. But, i'm going to go so far as to say that 2.5mm text is most likely NOT 2.5mm. It is really 25/256" (0.097656 in), which is close to the conversion of 2.5mm (0.098425 in).

Now, as far as the 0.5 rounding that occurs to the PDF. This 2.5mm text, which is actually 25/256" (0.097656 in) will get rounded to font size 10 (or roughly 0.1000 in) in the PDF. Thus completing an upscale of the text size of about 2.4% from what it visually looked like within Revit. And "may" potentially result in why your 2.5mm example pushed past the line in the "built-in PDF Printer" example. 

Some additional testing shows that built-in PDF is not adjusting the Horizontal Scaling value of the text, and keeping this at 100, whereas a PDF Printer (Bluebeam) reduces this down to 99.65.

So, to summarize:

Revit: Arial, 3/32" (0.09375 inch) text with width factor =1 will result in the following going to PDF.

 Built-in PDF: Arial, 9.5 font, Horizontal Scaling = 100. This will reduce the overall length of the text.

Print to PDF (Bluebeam): Arial, 9.6 Font, Horizontal Scaling = 99.67. This matches visually what i see in Revit.

Edit:

Not every 1/256" increases the size as well. Going to have to investigate this further. My next inclination is to believe that it all relates to converting the mm or in. into font pixel (px) size and rounding to the closest pixel increment within revit. But even with this, 3/32" (0.09375) converts precisely to 9 pixel, yet i get a 9.5 to 9.6 out of it in the PDF.