Revit PDF Printer

[Chris DiSunno]

I'm having trouble reading the pdf-s I printed. I deleted the printer to reinstall and now cannot find it on the CD or on the web. Anyone know how I can get the most recent version?

I hope I don't have to reinstall revit to find it.

[petervanko]

Is it Adobe, CUTE, etc? Well, no matter what you end up doing, Revit instantly recognizes any Windows system printer.

[Wes Macaulay]

You can find it here:
http://revit.autodesk.com/7.0/common/download.asp?en-us

But if you're using anything but Arial for your drawings, prepare for disappointment!

[Chris DiSunno]

what is CUTE?

Does anyone know where the installation is for the Revit PDF Printer?

[Chris DiSunno]

Thanks Wes

[petervanko]

CUTE PDF writer handles it all. No font issues, no lost information.

[4christo4]

This brings up a great question... What is the best electronic plotting solution?

We use a couple of TT fonts that are relatively unique - Bank Gothic, Bell Gothic, and LordHawHaw (all in the title block only). Notes and dimensions all use arial.

Revit .pdf writer - convenient because you can print all sheets with only one setup sequence. But, text gets fubar - section tags have the sheet and drawing number flip, level heads get text compressed on top of itself, etc. It's not across the board that this happens, but only on specific section tags, specific level heads, etc. Also, we have our unique fonts (in the Advanced settings area of the printer) set to download as softfont and in the postscript options, TrueType is set to download as bitmap. Thus, all of our unique fonts show up fine. The deal killer is the section tags / level heads issue.

PDF995 - Works - does fine with section tags and level heads, and downloads our unique fonts without a problem. It is a pain in the a?? because we have to save each sheet separately - basically have to babysit the computer while it churns out sheet after sheet. This is usually the route we take, for while time intensive, it yields the most reliable output.

DWF writer - fantastic from an ease of use and file size standpoint. Sucks with the unique fonts. We haven't figured out a way to "download" the truetype fonts so they print correctly when our print shop works with them. Sending our fonts to the print shop is not an option in this case.

Anybody have a magic method? Easy to setup - one click on Print, walk away, come back and you've got files with all information as you would expect?

[petervanko]

I am in that "babysit" mode, naming/saving each file individually. The Revit PDF just never was reliable, so we turned elsewhere...

[LRaiz]

People reported good results with PDFCreator (http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/) . I recall reading that it would even auto-combine multiple sheets printed out of Revit into single a PDF but have no firsthand experience to confirm this feature.

[truevis]

...Anybody have a magic method? Easy to setup - one click on Print, walk away, come back and you've got files with all information as you would expect?Why this aspect of Revit is not a no-brainer is left to the imagination...

Adobe driver, print to file (set to download fonts). You'll get a folder full of .PRN files. In Acrobat you can combine these .PRN (which are PostScript files) into one binder and you're done. Hint: when you print the set, have a view not in the set open and close other views.

This same method may be possible with PDF995 products because they have http://www.pdfedit995.com/ which claims to "Combine multiple (2 or more) documents into a single PDF document. " -- Haven't tried it yet. EDIT: Tried it, doesn't seem to workhttp://forums.augi.com/images/icons/icon9.gif. Can auto-name, but if printing sheet set, all the names are <project>.pdf.

[carlosb.101393]

Just use the adobe professional version of acrobat, I have been using it with no problems.

[truevis]

Just use the adobe professional version of acrobat, I have been using it with no problems.
You still have to go though a method like I described -- which is a bit of a pain. Do you have a better way?

[Henry D]

For years I had been using PDF995 but I broke down and bought PDF Factory Pro about 6 months ago. You can print multiple sheets into one file.

[carlosb.101393]

Yes truevis, I do, I print to a DWF file (1 file all sheets), from there I print to PDF (1 file all sheets) just a two step process because revit does not allow to print to one file multiple sheets. Unless I missing something.

[truevis]

Yes truevis, I do, I print to a DWF file (1 file all sheets), from there I print to PDF (1 file all sheets) just a two step process because revit does not allow to print to one file multiple sheets. Unless I missing something.
That's not a bad way as long as everything with the DWF output is perfect. It also works with PDF995 last time I checked.

[SimonWHNZ]

But if you're using anything but Arial for your drawings, prepare for disappointment!
Oh dear! - does this mean my rebrand will have to go on hold again?

I've done several tests with a variety of TT Fonts and they all seem to come out OK. Have been trying Distiller but its vexpensive - get similar results from CutePDF (its free).

However, on larger projects, it seems no matter what print option you use, you HAVE to reboot the whole system otherwise the print quality is CR4P - stray letters all over the place.

Be interested in anyone else who is experiencing this

[LRaiz]

Oh dear! - does this mean my rebrand will have to go on hold again?

I've done several tests with a variety of TT Fonts and they all seem to come out OK. Have been trying Distiller but its vexpensive - get similar results from CutePDF (its free).

However, on larger projects, it seems no matter what print option you use, you HAVE to reboot the whole system otherwise the print quality is CR4P - stray letters all over the place.

Be interested in anyone else who is experiencing this
If you use PDF Writer then try the solution that I posted a while ago in this thread (http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=2505&page=2)

[SimonWHNZ]

Thanks Leonid,

I've started playing with your other suggestion - PDFCreator. Seems to do what you want. And combine multiple pages, really neat!
I'll have to get someone to try it out on a real job.

[juha-pekka.rindell]

I've started playing with your other suggestion - PDFCreator. Seems to do what you want. And combine multiple pages, really neat!

We have "accidentally" been able to combine multiple pages with Revit PDF Printer 4.2.

1. Choose as a printer first the Autodesk DWF Writer
2. Select print range "Selected views/sheets"
3. Click "Combine multiple selected views/sheets into a single file" active
4. Change the printer as Revit PDF Writer 4.2

and the "Combine" -option will stay !!

Of course the sheet sizes have to be the same per batch.
We use "custom page sizes" and the "no margin" -option to get zero margins.

[ashuler]

We have been able to use : Revit PDF Writer 4.2

http://taylor-tech.com/downloads