DWF Writer 3: no multipage option?

[Wes Macaulay]

Just tried the DWF Writer 3 which I downloaded from the Autodesk website and lo and behold, the radio button for multipage DWFs is greyed out.

Nuts to that. I uninstalled and installed DWF Writer 2 (fortunately I still had the installer), which will allow the multipage option.

I should note that we are pleased with PDF Factory (from www.fineprint.com (http://www.fineprint.com)) in terms of quality and being able to print multi-page PDFs from Revit.

We were trying to use DWF more (so that plot sets could be electronically marked up using Composer) but we are falling back to PDF since few of our plotting outlets know what DWF is or can deal with it.

[JamesVan]

I completely agree, Wes. The DWF team seemed to have fouled out on this release. The DWF Viewer 6.5 is way cool and they've finally added support for custom page sizes in DWF Writer 3, but we can't use it in Revit. Perhaps they didn't talk to the factory in Waltham?...I don't know, but they really need to get this thing fixed fast. Those that go to the Autodesk site to download the tools as of right now will get the DWF 3 tools and will be stymied by the lack of integration.

I've filed support requests with Autodesk and will let you all know if and when I hear anything positive.

[GuyR]

Wes,

How does multipage PDF work without the ability to combine sheets?

Guy

[Wes Macaulay]

If you have DWF Writer 2 installed, switch to to DWf and choose the multipage file option. Switch to your PDF printer driver and the setting will be retained IF your PDF driver supports multipage printing from Revit. Only the Revit PDF driver and PDF Factory do this -- don't know about Adobe Acrobat / Distiller...

[Steve_Stafford]

...We were trying to use DWF more (so that plot sets could be electronically marked up using Composer) but we are falling back to PDF since few of our plotting outlets know what DWF is or can deal with it...Thanks for the "heads up"!

I sure hope that since Autodesk is pinning so much of future integration on DWF that they don't lose sight of the fact that if we can't print them reliably it will never get off the ground. I keep hearing this over and over, "we can't use DWF, our printer or print shop can't print them or prints them badly."

[Wes Macaulay]

...not only that, I've had problem with Revit crashing when creating a DWF so badly that there's no option to save a recovery file or even send off an error report. Who needs that?!?

[The Sweg]

Funny that you should bring this up. I told our IT guy to put the latest DWF Viewer on everyone's machine in our office, and everybody magically lost the ability to print correctly. It throws the print off the page and/or gives you one print and three blank sheets. You can imagine how happy everyone was with me for always wanting to be the one to 'move forward'! :sad:

In trying to fix all of this, I also downloaded the new writer and found the same thing, no multi-page ability. Thank goodness I had the older version on my machine at home!

It was hard enough selling the 'old dogs' and the boss on Revit--now that's going fine, but this????

[Mr Spot]

If you have DWF Writer 2 installed, switch to to DWf and choose the multipage file option. Switch to your PDF printer driver and the setting will be retained IF your PDF driver supports multipage printing from Revit. Only the Revit PDF driver and PDF Factory do this -- don't know about Adobe Acrobat / Distiller...
Tested this with Adobe Acrobat 7 Professional... Doesn't work. Still need to manually join them afterwards...