Revit won't print to PDF

[Anonymous]

There's a frustrating ongoing issue where when someone attempts to print documents to PDF, the function either:

1. Excessively slow, or
2. Freezes entirely with a progress bar that never advances, or
3. Appears to run through some background processes but fails to even open a progress window

In all cases the end result is the same, a failure for Revit to generate PDFs.

This issue has been brought up in previous threads, with the most recent being linked below, but that thread was never provided with a viable solution and yet Autodesk has marked it as "solved".

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/revit-collaboration-forum/revit-2017-fails-to-print-to-pdf/td-p/63307...

This is an ongoing issue that hinders workflow and is costing valuable time and money with no clear solutions even being hinted at from Autodesk. It appears as though they are not taking this issue seriously at all (the previous thread is now over a year old and yet the problem persist with 2016, 2017, and 2018 versions). The ability to generate PDFs is the most basic need of architects for our practice.

Is Autodesk taking this serious?

My office is currently using a work around (Option 1 of the link provided below), but it's cumbersome and interrupts workflow, and by no means is an acceptable permanent solution.

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

We need Autodesk to properly respond and correct this ongoing issue that their paying customers are having to deal with and is hindering our work as a result.

[ktaltd]

Hi

Autodesk really need  to completely re-engineer the whole plotting thingin Revit.  I find the process in Revit cumbersome and bascially unmanagable for plotting jobs of any scale - most larger firms buy an addon to manage this aspect of the workflow. (something like RTV tools).

In AutoCAD, using Sheet sets, the management of the plotting process is far more sophisticated where plots are managed in a hierarchical structure and sheets can be remapped to many different plotters and plot configurations, - left unattended. So, it is not as though Autodesk do not how to do this, they just need to bring these concepts to Revit and provide ther own drivers for pdf files - so that plotting is predictable, reliable and manageable.

Many of these plotting issues have been around for over 10 years with Revit so I think it is time it was fixed to give Revit some industrial strength in this regard.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

We need Autodesk to properly respond and correct this ongoing issue that their paying customers are having to deal with and is hindering our work as a result.

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Revit is modeling software, not printing to PDF software. If you are running a legitimate business then you get and pay for the right tools for the job. I use Bluebeam for PDF output. This morning I printed a 730 sheet set of drawings to PDF without incident while working in Revit in another session. I dumped Adobe Acrobat years ago...

[ToanDN]

Asking for a built-in PDF printer is a legitimate request, especially in this time and date, when PDF is virtually the agreeable medium for deliverables. I can create PDF from nearly everything viewable on my computer: all Microsoft office files, SketchUp, Chrome, Google office Suite, etc... without any external PDF printer.  Except, Revit.

Something basic like AutoCAD PDF would totally suffice.

[Anonymous]

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@ToanDN wrote:

Asking for a built-in PDF printer is a legitimate request, especially in this time and date, when PDF is virtually the agreeable medium for deliverables. I can create PDF from nearly everything viewable on my computer: all Microsoft office files, SketchUp, Chrome, Google office Suite, etc... without any external PDF printer.  Except, Revit.

Something basic like AutoCAD PDF would totally suffice.

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a legitimate request for whom? I use Revit 7 days a week 10 hours a day (no BS) and I have for some 8 years and I have absolutely no desire to have Revit have a PDF printer built in. There's a lot of things that I would like Revit to do additionally to make my long day a bit easier but PDF printing isn't one of them. I bought Bluebeam Extreme and it paid for itself in a month (or less). I know that you post a lot here and have all the answers but you are wrong in this case. Those who have PDF printing issues need to quit whining and get the proper software to do the job. My opinion is all...

[ToanDN]

A legitimate question to ask Autodesk, of course.

You buying Bluebeam and it paying for itself in a month, or someone downloading free PDF Creator and it paying for itself right away are the reason to justify buying Bluebeam and downloading PDF Creator, not the reason to justify Revit shortcoming on this front. You got them mixed up.

You can disagree with my opinion but you need a better ground to flat out say it is wrong.

[Anonymous]

After doing a google search as you can imagine this is heard before and I can see it is currently under review.

Link to IDEA Post:
https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/revit-ideas/2d-pdf-printing-support/idi-p/6325091

[Anonymous]

I have tried the workaround you provided and I am still not able to print using Adobe Acrobats Driver.

[sasha.crotty]

Hi @Anonymous, @Anonymous, this is indeed an issue that has been reported to the Revit team and is under active investigation.  So far, we have not been able to reproduce the behavior on our machines with the customer files provided, so we would appreciate your help to investigate this further.

Could you please file a case with a Autodesk support and include the following information:

exact steps to reproduce (writing this out may seem redundant, but sometimes one click can make all the difference)

all files, journals, links, software versions, and printer settings ...including all views printed in Revit, all Revit printer settings, and all Adobe printer settings including advanced.

Particularly important settings are:
file location in revit
one or multiple files
file location and prompt yes/no for Adobe
font settings in Adobe

Other important information:
Are PDF files being overridden?
Is Acrobat or pdf reader open when printing?
Are there always linked Revit files? Does problem stop if there is no Link?

One other thing to quickly double check is that your machine is not running out of RAM. This would very significantly affect the performance of printing.

Thanks in advance for your help with the investigation.

[kaylaE3NQG · Accepted solution]

FOR BLUEBEAM USERS WITH THIS ISSUE:

We use Bluebeam Revu in our office. I was having difficulty printing PDF through Revu so I went to the Bluebeam Administrator > selected Printer Tab> under Port Monitor there are two boxes labeled "Printer Monitor" and "Status." If they are blank click "Restart." The boxes below should appear as below:

The Printer Monitor box below should read: BBPrint followed by a series of numbers.

The Status box below should read: "Responding" 

Press Apply, OK, then Exit.

Go back to revit and Print your PDF through Bluebeam and it should work from there. If you fall into this issue again follow the same steps. 

About the Port monitor in Bluebeam:

Printer Monitor - Shows the name of the process and the port being used. The port number will change.

Status - Shows the status of the port monitor. Click the Restart button if the status does not say "Responding".

Restart - Click to restart the port monitor. The port monitor Status must be "Responding" to create PDF files.

Stop - Click to stop the port monitor.

Screen shot:

[cpbdesignsolutions]

Just the answer I needed! You are a lifesaver!

[aagilbert]

ok I FINALLY found a solution to this after exhausting trying all of my PDF printer options, making sure nothing was outside of title block border, doing and audit, etc. It turns out my SHEET NAME was too long. If you save your file to something much shorter it may work for you. I had 75 sheets and 4 were not printing for me. Simple fix.

[kyle.ingber]

thank you!!

[Connor.Covey]

Im sorry, Revit is a documentation software, so printing is pretty much implied, or no documents. Its not a lot to ask for, and it should have been addressed 10 years ago, especially considering the price. Also, you clearly don't know Revit that well or you wouldn't be working everyday for 10 hours......

[Connor.Covey]

Im sorry, Revit is a documentation software, so printing is pretty much implied, or no documents. Its not a lot to ask for, and it should have been addressed 10 years ago, especially considering the price. Also, you clearly don't know Revit that well or you wouldn't be working everyday for 10 hours.