Export EPS file from Revit

[Rols]

I'm trying to find some way to create an EPS file from Revit which I can pass on to our graphics department, which then imports them into Adobe InDesign, where they occasionally need to be able to tweek them for marketing materials.
I can get a PDF which almost serves the purpose, but they're not quite a true vector file. I suspect it's some little setting within a postscript printer driver, but I can't quite find it.
Any suggestions??
Thanks in advance.

[hand471037]

If your crew has Illustrator along with InDesign, you can just send them DWG's or DXF's and they should be able to open then right fine, save them out as EPS and use them...

[Rols]

Thanks, Jeff.
I'll give that a try.
At least I wouldn't be opening the dwg in Acad and exporting an eps from there (that would be downright embarrassing!)

[Wes Macaulay]

There's also the EPS printer driver on Adobe's website... we use that quite often with good results.

[aaronrumple]

Use the Adobe Postscript driver. Free and excellenet quality. Be sure to download a PPD along with that so you'll have sheet sizes and other settings. I recommend the Acrobat PPD which is on the Adobe site or on your Acrobat CD.

[Rols]

Use the Adobe Postscript driver. Free and excellenet quality. Be sure to download a PPD along with that so you'll have sheet sizes and other settings. I recommend the Acrobat PPD which is on the Adobe site or on your Acrobat CD.

I've used that for PDF's, which come close but act strangely once imported into InDesign, but how do you get EPS's??
Is there a magical little setting within the driver?
Thanks again for the insight.

[tbarnesarc]

Another way is to make a PDF then open it and "save as" select EPS and you're done.

[Wes Macaulay]

The PostScript driver CREATES an EPS. Don't you get a Generic PostScript printer listed in your control panel after the install?

[aaronrumple]

Note: When printing to a file using Revit it want's to name them *.prn or *.plt. You can assign a *.eps, *.ps or whatever extension you like. Adobe doesn't care. Using the driver, it will create EPS even if there is a *.prn extension. This will import just fine in Acrobat or Distller or other....

[tbarnesarc]

Why make it more complicated than it needs to be? Print a PDF, open it in Acrobat and save as an eps. It's simple and there is no need to install anything else. I tested it and it works perfect. I opened in Illustrator and it looks perfect.

[aaronrumple]

Ever try batch plotting using Acrobat? doesn't work (at least with acrobat 6).

[tbarnesarc]

Ever try batch plotting using Acrobat? doesn't work (at least with acrobat 6).I use CutePDF and it's fine for batch plotting and it works great. In the case of EPS files how often are you really going to need to batch plot? I have a feeling it's only a view or two in most cases. You're not going to put a whole drawing set in Indesign or Illustrator.

[aaronrumple]

We batch plot to EPS every project. My presentation for next week is about 10 sheets.

[SkiSouth]

We plot to PDF on all projects - 60 sheets - no fun
each drawing
done.

[dbaldacchino]

I've tried installing an Adobe Postscript driver and then selected a printer driver in the Advanced tab....I tried several and they all seem to have a similar problem. Even though the print preview displays fine, when I rasterize in Photoshop, the image is not completely on the sheet, sometimes only half is on the image area and the rest is empty.

I noticed that eps files of views containing shadows are huge. A presentation plan
(32x40) without shadows plots for about 4-5MB while the same with shadows turned on is 165MB. And of course it takes for ever to rasterize in Photoshop. Another problem when rasterizing is that Photoshop reported missing fonts even though I know they are on the laptop since they show up in Revit. Quite weird, cannot figure out what's wrong. It seems that no fonts can be found. Any ideas?

[aaronrumple]

42x30 @ 300 dpi and 24 bit color is 362,880,000 bytes..... So 165 mb is what one would expect compressed and with white space. The math is simple ((dpi)w x (dpi)h x color depth)/8

The issue is that EPS is a hybrid file type. It contains both raster and vector information. When you import an EPS all that vector gets converted to raster and the file size balloons.

I use Corel Draw which lets me keep the EPS (PDF) as vector and add to it without the large file issues. There are a few tricks along the way, but a finished color rendering 30x42 will be 10-15 mb. I assume one could do something similar with Illustrator. (I'm always amazed at the popularity of Photoshop when it is such a poor program when trying to work with large architectural drawings...)

[dbaldacchino]

Aaron, so why is the same view without shadows exported as eps only 4.75MB and the same with shadows on is 165MB? I'm talking about the file as shows up in explorer, before opening in Photoshop.

Also, when I previously exported similarly sized views from ADT using a Postscript Level 2 driver (Heidi driver I believe), the files were always really small; 2-5MB. Why am I having the font issue when opening the eps files exported from Revit? I never had this problem, and the fonts are available.

[nole]

Hi there!
I'll try to answer. When printing lines (without shading) Revit vector process data, hence file is small. When printing shaded views Revit raster process data and gives a huge file.

[dbaldacchino]

Thanks Nole. Actually, I printed both as hidden line views with color fills turned on. The one without shadows turned on, was 165MB, the one without was 4.75MB. If what you're saying is the reason for the file size difference, then I guess shadows produce an eps with a raster in it, while everything else is vectorised.

I still don't understand why the print preview is as it should but the end result is a cut off, shifted view towards the top. When printing to pdf using Ghostscript, it works fine. What about batch printing? How can you automatically batch print when you're going to be asked for filenames?

[aaronrumple]

ThanHow can you automatically batch print when you're going to be asked for filenames?
Like this:
http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=23733&highlight=acrobat+batch+aaron

[brenehan]

Hi Guys

I have started to use the Adobe EPS printer driver as described earlier in this thread. It seems to work relatively well.
On opening the file in In-Design, it is not recognising the text/font. The text in the Revit file is Arial with no changes (i.e. no width, bold or underlined change ect), so I'm, not sure why it's not working. I've attached an image of the error message below.
Anyone got any ideas? The fonts it say are in the EPS are not in the Revit file!

Thanks
Brian

[brenehan]

Anyone got any ideas on this. I really want to know are we doing something wrong, or is it standard when exporting Revit to EPS.
We have also noticed when you pdf Revit and then bring it into "In-Design" it also doesn't recognise the front.

Thanks
Brian