Export for Remote Printing

[building313346197]

Help!!! Ok, I do residential work. I have a client and when I started on their project they lived in the town adjacent to me. Their house is to be built in South Carolina and I am in Arkansas. Their house here sold before we finished the design and plans and they moved to South Carolina. I usually do most corresponance by e-mail so the distance hasn't been a problem, but we're almost finished and they would like to be able to print some copies of construction documents THERE to review and mark-up. I don't know why I haven't been able to figure this out, but can anyone help? I would like to be able to export to a PDF or something that they can have printed there locally. I do NOT have a PDF creator and I can see spending $300 on it b/c this is only the second time I've had this issue in almost 4 years. I'm thinking that with as much money as I spent on this dadgum software there HAS to be a way to do this without having to buy something else. I don't need anything fancy in the document, I just need to be able to send it in a way they can print it out to take home and look at a hard copy!!

Thanks in advance!!
Megan

P.S. Yes, I have thought of the old-fashioned way of printing it here and mailing it to them. However, we have a bit of a time constraint so if I do that I will have to overnight it. At the moment it looks like that's what I'll end up doing, but I can't help but think there's a simple solution right under my nose. lol

[Ed Jobe]

You already have the pdf drivers. Type PLOTTERMANAGER. This brings up Explorer at the folder where your plotter files are. Click on the Add-A-Plotter wizard. At the screen to select the type of driver, leave the default My Computer. Then select one of the Autodesk ePlot drivers.

[building313346197]

Type PLOTTERMANAGER where??

[Ed Jobe]

That is an autocad command of course, so, at the command line.

[building313346197]

Ok, well I figured it out . . .just downloaded CutePDF. Anyway, I work in Revit. I was thinking did I not mention that in my post? Apparently I did NOT, but this is a Revit Architecture forum. So I don't do command line stuff. lol That would explain why that made no sense to me! ; )

[building313346197]

Ok, now I'm a big dummy b/c I realize that I accidentally posted this in AutoCAD Architecture! lol No wonder I was having a rough time of it! I have no idea why I did that and how I missed it . . .I should just delete the whole thread, but maybe someone will get some entertainment out of my goof. ; ) Ignore my earlier comment please!

[gbrowne]

Welcome to the Revit forum!

I use Revit and Cute PDF. Works for me.

Hope it works out for you!

[irneb]

Yep CutePDF is nice, though I prefer PDFCreator myself (just because it's got more options and more automatic stuff). It's still free and open source: http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/

I see you've not mentioned DWF? There are some benefits in using that over PDFs. Not to mention Revit has a built-in Export to DWF. http://bim.typepad.com/synchro/2011/05/dwf-vs-pdf-vs-dwfx.html

[gbrowne]

I know DWF works well and exports directly etc, but generally speaking, by and large, most people who don't work with CAD, i.e. the rest of my office, don't know what it is.

Like it or not, .PDF is the de facto standard filetype for sharing.

[building313346197]

Thanks for all the tips, guys. I have used the export to dwg, but in this case it HAD to be pdf. I needed to be able to send to a printer several states away and they needed it in pdf, but I wanted to make sure it would look just as if I had printed it here. I had been leary of using the Cute PDF, but I did a big gulp and downloaded and it worked beautifully. I didn't need anything fancy, just needed a way to e-mail and for them to print it. My clients told me they got them and they looked nice and clear and so this will be a useful tool for me not just for the remainder of this project, but also for future projects if needed. I can't imagine having done this 150 years ago after having the tools available to me today! lol

[irneb]

I know DWF works well and exports directly etc, but generally speaking, by and large, most people who don't work with CAD, i.e. the rest of my office, don't know what it is.

Like it or not, .PDF is the de facto standard filetype for sharing.


Thanks for all the tips, guys. I have used the export to dwg, but in this case it HAD to be pdf.Note I mentioned DWF (not DWG). And if you use the newer DWFx then that can be opened directly inside Internet Explorer (without needing addons). So even more people should be able to open it than PDF (i.e. they only need to have Windows, no need for Acrobat).

[gbrowne]

I didn't know that about DWFx being openable in Explorer. What I really mean is your average non cad, not particularly PC literate person finds reassurance in the pdf logo. Anything else is 'one of those cad things'.

I know it sounds stupid and perhaps it is, but I get asked about filetypes regularly and non cad types just don't want to know. It doesn't matter if its better.

[building313346197]

Yes, I did miss that . . .I had no clue about that, so I may have to give it a try sometime. I'd actually love a way to let them see this in 3D, but I can't spend all day trying to figure out how to make it happen. And I can't spend any money on it! lol This couple has a very experience builder son who is a magician with rooflines. I am not! He's coming to visit them this weekend for the express purpose of helping me work out some issues with the roof and check some other things. I send many exported 3D images (along with floor plans and elevations), but for them to be able to open a 3D view and spin it around themselves would be helpful in this situation. I read something about it recently . . .anybody know how to do that?

[irneb]

I know that the new PDF's can have 3D inside. But you need Adobe's full Acrobat for those (which is not free). http://bim.wikispaces.com/Revit+to+3D+Pdf+-+BIM+Functionality

Though I'd advise the 3dDWF instead. I've found those to work a lot smoother than the 3dPDFs. http://www.revitforum.org/architecture-general-revit-questions/1929-revit-3d-pdf.html

[building313346197]

Awesome, thanks for the info. I did manage to do something that worked beautifully. I was thinking if I could share my screen with them it would be like they were here in my office. So I ran a search, found a thing that looked like it had a good interface and to top it off was FREE. It was join.me. Was soooo easy to use, I shared my screen they watched and then I had them on speaker phone while we were working. So even though they couldn't move the model around themselves (which meant no learning curve) it was really like they were in my office b/c they would say, wait go back . . .can we see it from that other side, etc. If I needed to point something out I just used my cursor and if they wanted to point something out to me they just gave me directions like, see where your cursor is . ..a little to the left, etc. We accomplished so very much it was absolutely wonderful! The great thing is I know I stumbled upon something that I will use much more often than I ever imagined. I had to figure something like this out for them, b/c they're halfway across the country. But I have clients who live in the same town as me who never have time to come to me. I do almost everything with all of my clients online. They love it and I love it. I work in my pajamas half the time and they look at their images when it's convenient for them. Not what I expected when I started doing this, but I love it!!